Donal McCann

Donal McCann (7 May 1943 – 17 July 1999) was an Irish stage, film, and television actor best known for his roles in the works of Brian Friel and for his lead role in John Huston's last film, The Dead. In 2020, he was listed as number 45 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors. Biography Early life McCann was born in Terenure in Dublin. His father was John J. McCann, a playwright and politician who served twice as Dublin's Lord Mayor. Although Donal had acted in a production of his father's Give Me a Bed of Roses at Terenure College in 1962, he briefly studied architecture before taking a job as a trainee sub-editor at the Evening Press which allowed him to pursue part-time acting classes at the Abbey School of Actors at the same time. He joined the Abbey Players in the late 1960s. Career Among his most important early roles were Cuchulainn in W. B. Yeats's On Baile Strand (1966), and as Estragon in a seminal production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, partnering with Peter O'Toole as Vladimir (1969).