Description

Fine Unmarked Hardback, First Edition, 1992. Can post.

To Danny Kaye, the great American clown, he was "the Irish rabbi;" to the filmgoers of the 1950s and 1960s worldwide he was a marvellous character actor who by his sheer presence often gave distinction to an otherwise undistinguished film; to Irishmen everywhere his talent was something to boast about; but to his fellow Dubliners he was their Noel and when he sang "Dublin Saunter" and carolled about the pleasures of heavenly Dublin, "with coffee at eleven and a stroll in Stephen's Green," laughter, pride and tears struggled for mastery.

Noel Purcell was the essential Irishman and Dubliner, kind, witty, talented, tolerant. He was one of the funniest pantomime dames that the Royal and the Gaiety had ever seen, dominating the stage by his great height and his magnificent head. As the schoolteacher in the film of Captain Boycott he stole the thunder of many more experienced actors and yet he gave up a career of film stardom because he could not bear the thought of being seven years away from his beloved Anna Liffey.
No one knows more about the great tradition of Dublin variety theatre than this Author. He tells the story and what a story it is! with great sympathy and insight. He reveals that quite a lot of cabinet-making done by the young Purcell survives. Not many people left the theatre (Noel started life as a call-boy in the Gaiety) to become a joiner and then return as a star. Touching and funny too is the love story behind the footlights. Noel met his future wife. Eileen Marmion, when she was twelve and he was thirty but as Noel said "She waited for me to grow up." and their marriage was a love match which lasted forty-five years.

Noel Purcell A Biography is a marvellous and fitting tribute to a great and noble Irish star of stage & film.