THE ENTHUSIAST (REMEMBERING BRIAN DENNEHY)
Brian Dennehy loved acting.
He loved his chosen profession so much that he notched up 183 roles on the big and small screen.
But he especially loved the company of fellow actors.
Whether it was onstage or on a film set, he marvelled at the talent of his fellow cast members and was quick to encourage them.
In the hours following news of his death, Dana Delany, with whom he worked in a Broadway production of Brian Friel's 'Translations' and in the 1999 film 'Sirens', recalled how his first love was theatre.
"I met Brian in a bar, acted in a movie with him but the stage was what he loved," the 'China Beach' and 'Desperate Housewives' star tweeted.
"In rehearsal he said: 'This is it, kid'. He was a fellow nutmegger, Mick and a Marine. They
Don’t make his kind anymore. ❤️to his family."
Dennehy was born in an Irish Catholic family in Bridgeport, Connecticut to Hannah Mannion and her husband, Edward Dennehy - a wire editor for the Associated Press.
The family eventually moved to Long Island in New York. He and his brothers were educated in the village of Mineola.
His grandparents had left Ireland during the 1890s, with his grandfather having a bitter taste in his mouth about his homeland.
"My grandfather had a really bitter childhood," he would later recall.
"He went to America to lose himself. He hated being reminded of Ireland and hated everything Irish: Irish music, everything.
"And maybe that wasn't an unusual reaction for the first generation - all they remembered was poverty and oppression.
"But my own father, he became a typical Irish American, a typical sentimentalist. Me, third generation - I fell in love with Ireland when I first visited but I am no idealist.
"I know the good and the bad points - the joy and the craziness - but, at the same time, it all works for me."
One of his early passions in Chaminade High School was American Football and he secured a scholarship at Columbia University.
His university education was disrupted for five years with a spell in the US Marines, which took him to Japan, South and various bases across the United States.
Dennehy eventually graduated from Columbia with a history degree in 1965.
As a high school student, he had shown a flair for acting but turned his back on it for sport.
His spell in the Marines enabled him to take a graduate degree in dramatic arts at Yale where the passion for acting was rekindled.
On graduating, Dennehy took on several jobs to make ends meet, working as a delivery driver, a butcher, a taxi driver, a bartender and eventually as a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch in Manhattan - a job he loathed.
After several years of performing in community theatre in the 1970s in Long Island, he decided to go professional.
Dennehy would credit his love of going to theatre to attending matinees of Broadway plays on Wednesdays when he was a truck driver.
He would build up experience in New York's vibrant theatre scene to earn roles on Broadway, catching the eye of producers with substantial roles in productions of Judith Rossner's 'Looking for Mister Goodbar' and Dan Jenkins' American Football novel 'Semi Tough'.
Film and television roles beckoned and he landed roles in the movie versions of both plays - the former starring Diane Keaton and the latter starring Burt Reynolds.
1977 would also see him gain a lot of experience of small screen acting in hit TV series like 'Kojak', 'Serpico', 'Police Woman', 'Lou Grant', 'MASH' and 'Lannigan's Rabbi' and TV movies like 'Bumpers', 'Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye' and ABC's 'It Happened at Lakewood Manor' with Suzanne Somers.
Dennehy was rarely off the big or small screen after that.
Over the years, he would appear in a staggering array of popular US TV shows including 'Dallas', 'Dynasty', 'Knot's Landing', 'The Tony Randall Show', 'Hunter', 'Cagney and Lacey', 'Miami Vice', 'Just Shoot Me', 'The West Wing', 'Law and Order: Special Victims Unit', '30 Rock', 'Rules of Engagement', 'The Good Wife', 'The Big C', 'The Blacklist' and Amazon Prime's 'Hap and Leonard'.
There would be aborted attempts to carry a sitcom - initially on ABC's 'Star of the Family' in which he played a fire chief in 1982 which was axed after 10 episodes and then in 2001 as the patriarch in Edward Burns' NBC sitcom 'The Fighting Fitzgeralds', as a retired firefighter forced to share his home with his three sons, a daughter-in-law and granddaughter but that also only lasted 10 episodes.
Dennehy, however, would regularly grace films and TV movies, landing early on in his career a substantial lead role in 1978 as the real life Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser in 'A Real American Hero' for CBS who pursued a man who killed young people with illegal moonshine.
There was a role that year in CBS's 'Harvey and Oswald' about the fallout from the JFK assassination with Frederic Forest playing Lee Harvey Oswald and Michael Lerner as Jack Ruby.
Tony Richardson directed Dennehy and Stefanie Powers in the Emmy nominated 1978 CBS movie 'A Death in Canaan' about a teenager put on trial for the murder of his mother in Connecticut.
On the big screen, he would appear in his first film with his future 'First Blood' co-star Sylvester Stallone in the Norman Jewison helmed union crime drama 'F.I.S.T.' with Rod Steiger and Peter Boyle. It was a critical and commercial success.
Another notable TV movie role was in Michael Mann's multi-Emmy award winning 1979 Folsom Prison drama 'The Jericho Mile' for ABC with Peter Strauss, in which he played the leader of a gang of white inmates.
That year Dennehy appeared in the 1979 Richard Lester directed prequel 'Butch and Sundance: The Early Days' with Tom Berenger and William Katt, in which he played a former member of Butch's gang who believes he has been betrayed.
In Blake Edwards' sex conedyt hit '10' with Dudley Moore, Bo Derek and Julie Andrews, he played a bartender with a sympathetic ear.
Walter Bernstein directed him in the 1980 period comedy 'Little Miss Marker', with Walter Matthau, Tony Curtis, Julie Andrews and on Newhart which was based on the work of Damon Runyon.
In CBS's Vietnam War miniseries 'A Rumor of War' with Brad Davis, Stacy Keach and Keith Carradine, Dennehy drew on his own experiences as a US Marine to play a sergeant in the regiment.
He joined Danny Kaye, Eli Wallach, Carl Reiner, Ed Flanders and George Dzundza in 'Skokie', playing a police chief having to deal with a neo Nazi's request to stage a rally in a largely Jewish village in Illinois in a 1981 CBS TV movie directed by Herbert Wise.
In cinemas, Ted Kotcheff directed him, Michael O'Keefe, Peter Fonda, Karen Allen and James Woods in the well received Canadian youth cult thriller 'Split Image'.
However the film that really helped register Dennehy with film audiences was Kotcheff's 'First Blood', also released that year, in which he portrayed the sheriff of a small town in Washington state who is obsessed with capturing Sylvester Stallone's rogue Vietnam vet, John Rambo.
A huge box office hit, Dennehy's performance was especially praised by the film critic Roger Ebert.
There was a notable performance as a New York detective in Michael Apted's clever 1983 mystery thriller 'Gorky Park' with William Hurt, Lee Marvin, Joanna Pacula and Ian Bannen which had a script by Dennis Potter and made a modest profit at the box office.
Mike Newell directed Dennehy in the well received syndicated TV movie 'Blood Feud' with Robert Blake and Cotter Smith portraying the bitter tensions between the union leader Jimmy Hoffa and Bobby Kennedy when he was the Attorney General.
There was a comic role in 1984 as a police sergeant in the 1960s set Dick Lowry NBC movie 'Off Sides (Pigs versus Freaks)' about a football game between police and hippies designed to settle old scores.
He scored another box office hit when Ron Howard cast him as an alien leader in the 1985 sci-fi comedy fantasy 'Cocoon' with Steve Guttenburg, Don Ameche, Hume Cronyn, Maureen Stapleton, Wilford Brimley and Jessica Tandy.
He briefly reprised the role at the end of Daniel Petrie's unsuccessful 1988 sequel.
A role as a corrupt sheriff in Lawrence Kasdan's underrated 1985 Western 'Silverado' with Kevin Kline, Danny Glover, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner, Rosanna Arquette, Linda Hunt, Jeff Goldbum and John Cleese was well received, even if the film tanked at the box office.
In Bud Yorkin's 'Twice in a Lifetime', he joined Gene Hackman, Ann-Margaret, Ellen Burstyn and Ally Sheedy in a much admired 1985 mid-life crisis drama.
The following year, his performance as Lieutenant Leo McCarthy alongside Bryan Brown in Robert Mandel's action thriller 'F/X: Murder By Illusion' would result in another box office hit.
It would spawn a sequel, 'F/X2: The Deadly Art of Illusion' in 1991, which was directed by Richard Franklin but it stuttered at the box office after taking a critical hammering.
Dennehy played a police detective in Ivan Reitman's tepidly received 1986 film 'Legal Eagles' with Robert Redford, Debra Winger, Daryl Hannah and Terence Stamp.
A year later, he landed one of his most acclaimed roles in the English arthouse director Peter Greenaway's 'The Belly of an Architect' as an American architect in Italy with stomach cancer.
A rare appearance in an arthouse movie, the critic Janet Maslin believed at the time that it was the finest work Dennehy had done and it was one of the screen roles he was most proud of.
That same year he teamed up with James Woods again, playing a police detective turned successful novelist who is approached by a hitman to write a book about his life in Larry Cohen's enjoyable neo-noir 'Best Seller' with Victoria Tennant.
Dennehy was cast as a cynical truck driver hired to take medical supplies to a village stricken with cholera in 1988 in Kevin Connor's HBO adventure film 'The Lion of Africa' with Brooke Adams.
He stepped into the shoes of Kirk Douglas as Harrison in the Australian movie 'The Man From Snowy River II', the Geoff Burrowes directed sequel to the 1982 hit.
There was a role alongside David Strathairn and Michael Tucker in Joseph Sargent's Emmy winning 1989 CBS docudrama 'Day One' about the Manhattan Project and its role in the creation of the atomic bomb.
Dennehy joined Simon Cadell, Alan Howard Tony Doyle and Michael Shannon in ITV's series of espionage tales under the 'Freddie Forsyth Presents' banner called 'Pride and Extreme Prejudice' in which he played a West German agent.
In HBO's 'Perfect Witness', Dennehy played in 1989 a District Attorney who jails Aidan Quinn's witness to a Mafia assassination for failing to testify.
On the big screen, he played the father of Richard Gere and Kevin Anderson's bank robbing brothers in Gary Sinise's 'Miles from Home' with Penelope Ann Miller, Helen Hunt, Laurie Metcalf and John Malkovich, which received decent reviews.
In 1990, he was a District Attorney who asks Harrison Ford's prosecutor to head up an investigation into the murder and rape of a colleague in Alan J Pakula's hit big screen adaptation of Scott Turow's 'Presumed Innocent' with Bonnie Bedelia, Greta Scacchi and Raul Julia.
There was a lead role in John Mackenzie's much derided 1990 big screen police officer drama 'Blue Heat' with Joe Pantoliano, Bill Paxton and Jeff Fahey.
The success of the film would lead to an Emmy nominated role in a 1992 ABC miniseries adaptation of Turow's 'Burden of Proof' with Hector Elizondo, Victoria Principal and Stefanie Powers in which he played a corrupt brother-in-law of a grieving attorney.
There was another legal role that year as an attorney in Stephen Gyllenhaal's Emmy award winning CBS TV movie 'Killing In A Small Town' with Barbara Hershey which was based on a real 1980 suburban murder case in Texas.
Dennehy took on a villainous role in NBC's 1991 TV movie 'In Broad Daylight' with Marcia Gay Harden about a bully who terrorises a Missouri town.
He portrayed the murdered Teamster boss Jackie Presser in HBO's 1992 TV film 'Teamster Boss: The Jackie Presser Story' with Jeff Daniels, Maria Conchita Alonso, Robert Prosky and Eli Wallach.
Eric Till directed him in 1992 as the serial killer John Wayne Gacey in the two part FOX television movie 'To Catch A Killer' with Margot Kidder.
Dennehy played a promoter in Rowdy Herrington's 1992 illegal underground boxing drama 'Gladiator' with James Marshall, Cuba Gooding Jr, Ossie Davis and Robert Loggia which was hammered by critics and stumbled at the box office.
In 1993, Dennehy embarked on the first of a popular series of NBC TV movies based around the fictional Cook County Sheriff Homicide Department Detective Jack Reed.
He starred alongside Susan Ruttan and Alice Krige in 'Jack Reed: Badge of Honour'.
Dennehy would reprise the role in 1994's 'Jack Reed: Search for Justice' with Miguel Ferrer and Charles S Dutton, 1995's 'Jack Reed: One of Our Own' with Kevin Dunn and CCH Pounder, 'Jack Reed: A Killer' Among Us' with Suki Kaiser in 1996 and in the same year 'Jack Reed: Death and Vengeance' with Joe Morton - directing the last four.
In ABC's critically acclaimed 1993 miniseries about the Charles Starkweather killing spree with Tim Roth, Fairuza Balk, Randy Quaid, Renee Zellweger and Milo O'Shea, he played the lawyer of Starkweather's 14 year old accomplice Carol Ann Fulgate.
Dennehy wrote and directed himself, Fairuza Balk, Bonnie Bedelia and Kevin Dunn in NBC's 'Shadow of a Doubt', an adaptation of William J Coughlin novel, which he played an alcoholic attorney who defends a young woman accused of murdering her father but the TV movie had a mixed reception.
In 1995, Dennehy appeared as the industrialist father of Chris Farley's graduate son in the comedy 'Tommy Boy' with Bo Derek, David Spade, Rob Lowe and Dan Aykroyd which was a minor hit in cinemas despite mixed reviews.
He played an influential Irish American patriarch with organised crime links in the 1995 CBS miniseries 'A Season in Purgatory' with Patrick Dempsey, Sherilyn Fenn, Bonnie Bedelia and Blair Brown.
Baz Luhrmann cast him as Ted Montague, the father of Leonardo DiCaprio's Romeo, in his stylish, Tarantinoesque telling of 'William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet' with Claire Danes, John Leguizamo, Harold Perrineau, Michael Rappaport, Paul Sorvino, Diane Venora and Pete Postlethwaite.
Dennehy played a US President in The Family Channel's 1998 TV movie 'Voyage of Terror', about a cruise ship riddled with a virus, with a cast that comprised of Martin Sheen, Lindsay Wagner, Horst Buchholz and Michael Ironside.
He also depicted a US Senator in the Showtime Network's Gulf ' War miniseries 'Thanks of a Grateful Nation' with Ted Danson and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
In Showtime's TV movie crime drama 'Sirens' with Dana Delany, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Keith Carradine and Justin Theroux, he portrayed a police lieutenant shielding his officers from criticism after they beat to death the African American husband of an inter-racial couple in an explosive incident.
Dennehy was memorable as a general in Stephen Frears' taut, black and white, star studded live TV 2000 remake of Sidney Lumet's Cold War drama 'Fail Safe' with George Clooney, Harvey Keitel, Richard Dreyfuss, Noah Wyle, Sam Elliott and James Cromwell.
He would win a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Willy Loman in Showtime's filmed version of the acclaimed Broadway production of Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman' with Elisabeth Franz for which he had previously earned a Tony nomination.
In 2002, Dennehy played an Irish American priest in Pete Jones' debut movie 'Stolen Summer' with Aidan Quinn, Bonnie Hunt and Kevin Pollak - the first movie to emerge out of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's HBO reality series 'Project Greenlight' but it struggledvto find an audience.
He joined Helen Mirren, Anne Bancroft and Oliver Martinez in a 2003 Showtime remake of Tennessee Williams' 'The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone' which was shot in Dublin and Rome.
Dennehy played an outspoken Catholic priest disgusted at the Boston clerical sex abuse cover-up in 'Our Fathers', Dan Curtis' acclaimed 2005 TV movie with Ted Danson, Christopher Plummer, Ellen Burstyn and Daniel Baldwin.
Spike Lee cast him as Chairman Billy Church in the critically lambasted 2004 sperm donor comedy drama 'She Hate Me' with Anthony Mackie, Kerry Washington, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Woody Harrelson, Monica Bellucci, Ellen Barkin and John Turturro.
A year later, he turned up as the veteran cop Jasper O'Shea in Jean-Francois Richet's remarke of the John Carpenter siege drama 'Assault On Precinct 13' with Ethan Hawke, Gabriel Byrne and Maria Bello.
He was the voice of Django, the leader of the rat pack and father of Remy in Disney's excellent 2007 Brad Bird culinary animated comedy 'Ratatouille'.
The following year he was a police lieutenant opposite Al Pacino, Robert de Niro, Carla Gugino and John Leguizamo in Jon Avnet's poorly received thriller 'Righteous Kill'.
Dennehy drew upon his own experiences as a heavy drinker, playing an alcoholic father in Richard Levine's 2010 comedy drama 'Every Day' with Liev Schreiber, Helen Hunt, Carla Gugino and Eddie Izzard.
He delivered just two lines as the father of Russell Crowe's character in Paul Haggis' 2010 prison break thriller 'The Next Three Days' with Elizabeth Banks, Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde and Lennie James which was s modest hit with audiences.
Dennehy joined Steve Martin, Jack Black, Owen Wilson, Rosamund Pike and Anjelica Huston in David Frankel's 2010 birdwatching comedy flop 'The Big Year'.
In BBC2 and The Science Channel's 2013 TV film 'The Challenger', he played the head of the commission investigating the Space Shuttle disaster alongside William Hurt, Joanne Whatley, Bruce Greenwood and Kevin McNally.
There was a chance to work with Terrence Malick on his 2015 movie 'Knight of Cups' with Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett and Antonio Banderas which had a mixed response from critics.
Three years later, Dennehy raved about Saoirse Ronan's performance in Michael Mayer's American historical drama reworking of Anton Chekhov's 'The Seagull' in which he played Sorin, the cantankerous ailing brother of Annette Bening's Irina in a handsome, well received adaptation also starring Elisabeth Moss, Corey Stoll, Mare Winningham and Billy Howle.
Dennehy appeared as the father of Jake Johnson's character in Jeff Tomsic's 2018 comedy 'Tag' with Jeremy Renner, Ed Helms, Annabelle Wallis, John Hamm, Isla Fisher and Rashida Jones.
There were good reviews last year for his performance as Korean War vet in Andrew Ahn's drama 'Driveways'.
Prior to his passing, Dennehy had two movies in the can awaiting release, Barry Alexander Brown's biographical drama 'Son of the South'
with Lucas Till and Julia Ormond and Francis Delia's 'Long Day Journey' with Danny Glover.
But while he was rarely off a big or small screen, Dennehy's passion remained theatre where he acquired a strong reputation for his performances in plays like 'Translations', 'Death of A Salesman', Samuel Beckett's 'Krapp's Last Tape', AR Gurney's 'Love Letters' and Eugene O'Neill's 'Desire Under The Elms', 'The Iceman Cometh' and 'Long Days Journey Into The Night' for which he finally won a Tony for Best Actor in 2003.
Survived by his second wife Jennifer Arnott and his five children and seven grandchildren, Dennehy made no secret about his own flaws- particularly his battle with alcohol addiction.
But his greatest addiction was to his craft and, as a result, he was not only a beloved actor but a respected one.
(Brian Dennehy passed away at the age of 81 on April 15, 2020)
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