Iris LawlorIris Lawlor, who has died aged 81, was one of the leading actresses of her generation, starring in many productions at the Gate Theatre and in the 1960s television drama series, Tolka Row. Her other work included presenting sponsored programmes on Raidió Éireann, and she also appeared in the film version of The Quare Fellow (1962).
Born on March 18th, 1923, in Drumcondra, Dublin, she was one of the four children of Gerard Lawlor and his wife, Annie (née Jordan). The family moved to Sandycove, and she was educated at the Dominican Convent, Dún Laoghaire.
She preferred sports to academic subjects, playing hockey and tennis when possible. "Very much the outdoor girl," she recalled.
Enrolling in the Abbey School of Acting, she proved to be a good student. She quickly perfected her elocution, dancing and singing skills, which were essential requirements for an all-round actor, and served her apprenticeship in pantomime at the Theatre Royal, performing with veterans of variety like Noel Purcell and Jack Cruise.
"In those days training was easier to come by, with the permanent companies taking in young people for small parts and stage management each year," she said.
"The real way to discover if one was any good was to work in a company under a good director who would chew you up if you did anything wrong. Stanley Illsley was a great help, and Hilton Edwards was marvellous."
She spent most of her career with Longford Productions, a company with a reputation for rakish gentility and which was based at the Gate Theatre. From an early stage she was regarded as the company's leading actress. "Those were the great days of the Gate. We did all the classics and a lot of modern stuff of quality like Mauriac and Sartre and Greene."
Longford Productions shared the Gate with Edwards-Mac Liammóir Productions, occupying it from April to September each year and touring the provinces during the winter. Molière, Goldsmith, Sheridan and Shaw, as well as Christine Longford's wry comedies, were mounted in provincial towns, playing to full houses.
Iris Lawlor's first part was Dunyasha in The Cherry Orchard, and she played this and six other parts on her first tour.
It was a demanding schedule, a week in every town with a different play each night. Subsequent roles included Marguerite in Dumas's The Lady with the Camellias and Laura, the vampire's prey, in Sheridan le Fanu's Carmilla.
She stressed that the company's productions were always beautifully dressed, with sets by designers such as Alpho O'Reilly and Carl Bonn. And she acknowledged the contributions of her colleagues in a "marvellous company", Maurice O'Brien, Charles Mitchel, Cathleen Delaney.
One member of the company, Aiden Grennell, who was her leading man on many occasions, particularly impressed her, so much so, that she married him.
By the 1960s she had had her "bellyful of the classics", and was glad of the opportunity to join the cast of Telefís Éireann's first soap, Tolka Row.
Based on Maura Laverty's 1951 play, and set in a Corporation estate on Dublin's north side, it was meant to be an Irish Coronation Street. Her role as Aunt Statia was unlike any other she had played.
"I don't see Statia as a basically unpleasant person, just a difficult and moody person," she said at the time.
"Imagine having to live in a household with a woman like that! I try to show that she's quite kindly when given the chance."
She was replaced in the role for Tolka Row's last season, something that was said to have hastened the soap's demise. Many viewers simply did not accept the "new" Aunt Statia.
The TV critic of the Munster Express joked that the show had gone to the dogs since another character, Gabby Doyle, had started sleeping around "with a strange woman passing herself off as Anastatia".
Her departure from Tolka Row effectively marked the end of Iris Lawlor's full-time acting career.
She acted occasionally into the early 1970s and later was fully supportive of her sons, Michael and Nicholas, when they decided to join the profession.
Her husband, Aiden, predeceased her in 2001; in addition to her sons, her daughter, Mariana, survives her.
Iris Lawlor: born March 18th, 1923; died July 18th, 2004