Jack MacGowran

Jack MacGowran

Birth : 1918-10-13, Dublin, Ireland

Death : 1973-01-30

History

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. John Joseph "Jack" MacGowran (October 13, 1918 – January 31, 1973) was an Irish character actor, whose last film role was as the alcoholic director Burke Dennings in The Exorcist. He was probably best known for his work with Samuel Beckett. Description above from the Wikipedia article Jack MacGowran , licensed under CC-BY-SA,full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Profile

Jack MacGowran

Movies

The Exorcist
Burke Dennings
12-year-old Regan MacNeil begins to adapt an explicit new personality as strange events befall the local area of Georgetown. Her mother becomes torn between science and superstition in a desperate bid to save her daughter, and ultimately turns to her last hope: Father Damien Karras, a troubled priest who is struggling with his own faith.
Start the Revolution Without Me
Jacques
An account of the adventures of two sets of identical twins, badly scrambled at birth, on the eve of the French Revolution. One set is haughty and aristocratic, the other poor and somewhat dim. They find themselves involved in palace intrigues as history happens around them. Based, very loosely, on Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities," Dumas's "The Corsican Brothers," etc.
A Day at the Beach
Collector
Bernie is a silver tongued wanderer with a fondness for drink and no clear goal in life. What was supposed to be a day of fun at the seaside turns to dust as he drinks his way through a seaside resort community, trailing his little niece Winnie.
The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go
Leo Zimmerman
An American draft dodger and aspiring writer named Nero Finnigan becomes involved with the notorious Mr. Go, an organized crime mastermind. They conspire to blackmail an American weapons scientist into providing secrets to Mr. Go's organization for resale to the highest bidder. "The Dolphin" then arrives, who is an American CIA agent and James Joyce scholar, and is charged with recovering the scientist and his work by whatever means necessary.
Age of Consent
Nat Kelly
An elderly artist thinks he has become too stale and is past his prime. His friend (and agent) persuades him to go to an offshore island to try once more. On the island he re-discovers his muse in the form of a young girl.
There's a Hole in Your Dustbin, Delilah
'Cheese and Egg' C.E. Petty
A skiving bin gang are on high alert when their new inspector takes an interest.
Faithful Departed
narrator
This short documentary draws on the photographs of Robert French from the William Lawrence Collection held in the National Library. The photos illustrate the Dublin of 1904 which served as a backdrop to James Joyce’s Ulysses. The film traces Joyce’s childhood and adolescence, his meeting with Nora Barnacle on June 10th, 1904, and the highways and byways which Leopold Bloom wandered through on June 16th, 1904. The music in the film references some of Joyce’s favourite songs, many of which appear in Ulysses.
Wonderwall
Prof. Oscar Collins
The eccentric professor Collins lives completely secluded in his chaotic apartment. When the model Penny moves in next to him, he becomes fascinated of her. He drills holes in her walls and ceiling and peeps on her day and night. He loses himself in daydreams and delusions
How I Won the War
Juniper
An inept British WWII commander leads his troops to a series of misadventures in North Africa and Europe.
The Fearless Vampire Killers
Professor Abronsius
A noted professor and his dim-witted apprentice fall prey to their inquiring vampires, while on the trail of the ominous damsel in distress.
Eh, Joe?
Joe
The first English broadcast of Eh, Joe? which aired on BBC2 on July 4th, 1966 with Jack MacGowran, for whom the play was specifically written, playing Joe and Siân Phillips as Voice. Directed by Alan Schneider with Beckett's supervision.
Cul-de-sac
Albie
A wounded criminal and his dying partner take refuge at an old beachfront fortress. The owner of the fortress and his young wife, initially unwilling hosts, quickly experience their relationship with the criminal shift in a humorous and bizarre fashion.
The Stable Door
This is a film made as an elaborate advert for the Insurance Industry. A group of criminals conspire to rob a warehouse which has also been spotted as a vulnerable target by an insurance salesman who suggests precautions, including buying insurance. Will the works be done in time and sufficient to stop the robbers?
Doctor Zhivago
Petya
The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.
Young Cassidy
Archie
In Dublin circa 1911, John Cassidy (Rod Taylor), an impoverished idealist, whose ambitions are restricted by the demands of looking after his family, journeys through the social injustices of Dublin life, involving himself with the rowdy tramway-men strike, dawdling with prostitute Daisy Battles (Julie Christie), and seeking a better life. He falls in love with bookshop assistant Nora (Dame Maggie Smith) who encourages him toward a life of writing. Finding success at the Abbey Theatre, his unorthodox views estrange him from family, friends, and his own past.
Lord Jim
Robinson
After being discredited as a coward, a 19th century seaman lives for only one purpose: to redeem himself.
Beginning to End
Man
A recital of passages from the works of Samuel Beckett, performed by Jack MacGowran, as a raving old man.
The Ceremony
O'Brian
A man has an affair with his condemned brother's girlfriend while plotting his escape in Tangier.
Tom Jones
Partridge
Tom loves Sophie and Sophie loves Tom. But Tom and Sophie are of differering classes. Can they find a way through the mayhem to be true to love?
The Brain
Furber
A millionaire businessman's brain is kept alive after a fatal accident, and communicates clues to a doctor on the trail of the killer
Mix Me a Person
Terence
Eighteen-year-old Harry Jukes is literally holding a smoking gun in his hand. His lawyer thinks he did it, but his psychiatrist disagrees -- and sets out to prove she is right.
Captain Clegg
Frightened Man
A captain and his sailors investigate the rampaging "Marsh Phantoms" terrorizing a coastal town, but their search is hindered by a local reverend and a horrifying curse.
Two and Two Make Six
Night Porter
An US airman stationed in the UK strikes down his commanding officer. Believing he killed him, the airman goes on the run with a girl. They run into a couple that looks like them and a mix up happens.
Blind Date
Postman
Dutch painter Jan-Van Rooyer hurries to keep a rendezvous with Jacqueline Cousteau, an elegant, sophisticated Frenchwoman, slightly his elder, whose relationship with him had turned from art student into one of love trysts. He arrives and is confronted by Detective Police Inspector Morgan who accuses him of having murdered Jacqueline. Morgan listens sceptically to the dazed denials of Van Rooyer as he tells the story of his relationship with the murdered woman. Morgan, after hearing the story, realizes that the mystery has deepened, and it becomes more complicated when the Assistant Commissioner, Sir Brian Lewis, explains that Jacqueline was not married but was being kept by Sir Howard Fenton, a high-ranking diplomat whose names must be kept out of the case.
Embers
Henry
Embers is a radio play written by Samuel Beckett first broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 24th June 1959. Henry's father ended his life in the sea and for the rest of his life Henry is doomed to the sound of the waves roaring in his ears. For twenty years he has talked incessantly to drown the tempest of his father's watery grave. His wife, Ada, chatters and listens and endures; his child goes through the incidents of a child's life and still the sea roars in the background. (Concord Theatricals)
Darby O'Gill and the Little People
Phadrig Oge
A wily old codger matches wits with the King of the Leprechauns and helps play matchmaker for his daughter and the strapping lad who has replaced him as caretaker.
I Captured the King of the Leprechauns
Phadrig Oge
Behind the scenes of Darby O'Gill and the Little People.
Behemoth, the Sea Monster
Dr. Sampson, the paleontologist
Marine atomic tests cause changes in the ocean's ecosystem resulting in dangerous blobs of radiation and the resurrection of a dormant dinosaur which threatens London.
She Didn't Say No!
William Bates
Bridget Monaghan, a single mother who has had six children by different fathers, shocks the conservative inhabitants of an Irish village.
Rooney
Joe O'Connor
The life of James Ignatius Rooney, a Dublin rubbish collector during the week and a Gaelic sportsman at the weekends.
The Rising of the Moon
Mickey J. - the poitín maker (1st Episode)
Three vignettes of old Irish country life, based on a series of short stories. In "The Majesty of the Law," a police officer must arrest a very old-fashioned, traditional fellow for assault. The man's principles have the policeman and the whole village, including the man he slugged, sympathizing with him. "One Minute's Wait" is about an little train station and glimpses into the lives of the passengers, with a series of comic setups. The third piece is called "1921" and is about a condemned Irish nationalist and his daring escape. Tyrone Power introduces each story.
Manuela
Tommy
James Prothero, forty-three years old and up to his ears in alcohol, is the skipper of a tramp ship due to leave South America for Britain – and he’s sick to death of carting goods back and forth across the world. Then he meets Manuela, a beautiful native girl smuggled on board by one of his crew, and comes to realise that she, too, is a lost soul. Gradually a love affair develops between them, and Prothero becomes dangerously blind to the responsibilities of his position.
Jacqueline
Campbell
Jacqueline is the daughter of Belfast shipyard worker Mike McNeil. The worker's worth is compromised by his crippling fear of heights. Dismissed from his job, he finds solace in the bottle. All seems hopeless until Jacqueline breaks through her father's self-imposed gloom and helps him to regenerate. An adaptation of the novel 'A Grand Man', by Catherine Cookson.
The Titfield Thunderbolt
Vernon Crump (as Jack McGowran)
When British Railways announce the closure of the Titfield to Mallingford branch line a group of local residents make a bid to run it themselves, backed by a monied member of the community who is attracted by the complete lack of licensing hours on trains. Unfortunately the local bus company starts to use methods that can hardly be seen as fair competition.
The Titfield Thunderbolt
Vernon Crump
When British Railways announce the closure of the Titfield to Mallingford branch line a group of local residents make a bid to run it themselves, backed by a monied member of the community who is attracted by the complete lack of licensing hours on trains. Unfortunately the local bus company starts to use methods that can hardly be seen as fair competition.
Time Bomb
When a saboteur places an explosive device on a train full of sea mines, the authorities call for bomb expert Peter Lyncort to diffuse the situation, unaware that he has explosive problems of his own.
The Quiet Man
Ignatius Feeney
An American man returns to the village of his birth in Ireland, where he finds love and conflict.
No Resting Place
Billy Kyle
The brilliant British documentary filmmaker Paul Rotha made his feature-film debut with 1950's No Resting Place. Filmed on location in Ireland, the film is a lightly fictionalized study of that country's itinerant workmen. Michael Gough plays tinker Alec Kyle, whose life is thrown into turmoil when he accidentally kills a man. Kyle spends the rest of the film evading Guard Mannigan (Noel Purcell), a civil servant who relies on instinct rather than scientific deduction to get his man. Without ever trying to elicit sympathy for his characters, director Rotha manages to compellingly detail the miserable living and working conditions of Ireland's nomad artisans.