Irish celebrities who suddenly vanished out of the spotlight

Hangdogroad · 07-06-2022 6:16pm

Admin, can something be done about this?

Hangdogroad · 10-06-2022 12:30pm

Frank Kelly is an interesting example of someone who disappeared from the spotlight and reappeared again. He did a lot of stuff on RTE in the 70's/early 80's. Halls Pictorial Weekly, Wanderly Wagon, Anois is Arís plus he had things like the Christmas Countdown song which was a hit in the UK as well, resulting in him appearing on Top Of The Tops. There was a pretty extended period though from about the mid 80's onwards where his profile waned. He was making the odd appearance in movies like Taffin etc and doing voiceover work in ads but I remember first reading about Fr Ted and seeing the pictures of him as Fr Jack and thinking, Frank Kelly, there's a blast from the past. One of the few interviews I remember him giving in the wilderness period was in a magazine, can't remember which, where he talked about how he had taken up bodybuilding and had overcome cancer. This was circa 1990/91.

NedsNotDead · 10-06-2022 3:50pm

Emmet Bergin, aka Dick Moran in Glenroe. He was one of main stars of it. But I dont recall him in much else after it finished

techman1 · 10-06-2022 4:05pm

I think Des Bishop is on the road to becoming another ex celebrity . His trademark was observational comedy of the American living in Ireland and brilliantly sending up our idiosyncrasies. But we took him as one of our own.

However now he has basically moved back to the States and married a basically posh east coast American woman. Apparently he is now very happy but it's not going to be great for his comedy career, he can't really go back on the Irish comedy circuit and do his schtick again because this time he is a 100% American. He is basically unknown in the US and can't really reverse the roles over there and point out the US idiosyncrasies as a full blooded American. He no longer has a trademark

Hangdogroad · 10-06-2022 11:27pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119184494#Comment_119184494

Yeah, he was one of the core cast and was in it from the very beginning. Only thing I can remember him in post Glenroe was Veronica Guerin. Would have been difficult to escape typecasting as Dick Moran. Must be pushing on in years now.

reclose · 10-06-2022 11:45pm

Des bishop was never good.

RabbleRouser2k · 11-06-2022 4:47am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119184566#Comment_119184566

Des was a limited comedian who, even when listening to his podcast (the one or two episodes I did listen to) came across as kind of a douche. The Maeve Higgin's interview, for one, was him trying to make all sorts of assumptions, or deny culpability regarding things that might have been said.

He was none too liked on the Irish scene, especially most recently. I don't think he was ever 'one of our own'... he just had the (short lived) observances of the difference between the Irish and the Americans. Problem is, that was short lived. And then his ego took off. (Apparently he threw a hissy fit over not winning an Ifta for his 'Des learns Gaelige' series).

Tried to make it in China and, also got engaged, but nothing happened, and he swiftly came back home. The relationship ended because he may have cheated on his fiancee (by his own insinuations, at least).

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119184494#Comment_119184494

He became a photographer.

https://collection.photoireland.org/photobooks/captured-light-exhibition-catalogue/

http://www.victorsloan.com/2012/01/30-contemporary-collection-print-draw.html

He was shooting photography part time while he was acting, but when Glenroe ended, he gave up acting and went into photography full time. I remember seeing his work mentioned with regards to photography, years ago. But I think he might do the odd bit of theatre.

techman1 · 11-06-2022 1:52pm

"He was none too liked on the Irish scene, especially most recently. I don't think he was ever 'one of our own'... he just had the (short lived) observances of the difference between the Irish and the Americans. Problem is, that was short lived. And then his ego took off. (Apparently he threw a hissy fit over not winning an Ifta for his 'Des learns Gaelige' series)."

Tried to make it in China and, also got engaged, but nothing happened, and he swiftly came back home. The

relationship ended because he may have cheated on his fiancee (by his own insinuations, at least).

Yea good observation, although I thought he was funny but he started losing the plot with that whole as gaelga thing , why would you go to all that effort to try and learn Irish just for a comedy show, if an Irish born comedian tried to do it you would be scratching your head.

Then trying to repeat in China ???

He probably thought a decade ago China was the happening place but I think his ideas were over indulged by RTE especially when they binned a lot of Dermot Morgan's stuff. They probably had a wet dream when he did the Des as gaelge thing

WillmaDickfit · 13-06-2022 2:25pm

Don Conroy, last time I seen or heard of him was when he visited my sons school and done maybe a 10min painting class, I'm talking late 00's , an absolute gentleman may I add

RabbleRouser2k · 13-06-2022 9:47pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119196495#Comment_119196495

He has a youtube channel. He's very busy. Apparently voicing a character in a new TV show, according to his insta.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo4dO9D4okn25M6mvfB02rQ/videos

Hangdogroad · 23-06-2022 9:59am

Remember Joanna Ryde? A poor persons Shirley Temple Bar.

RabbleRouser2k · 24-06-2022 2:03am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119237973#Comment_119237973

Tweets on twitter. Probably doing some clubs or some gigs to pay the bills.

Strumms · 24-06-2022 2:25am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119196495#Comment_119196495

Saw him in a pub with whom I presumed to be family of his… pre pandemic…

he was ordering beside me… caught me giving him a sorta “ jaysus is that yer man” look, as I hadn’t seen or thought of him in years and he just gave me a polite hello, he was polite, friendly and gracious with staff and had the air of a nice happy person who was content in and with life….saw him not long ago in the same pub..

does free art instruction on YouTube, catering to kids and adults alike…

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo4dO9D4okn25M6mvfB02rQ/videos

WillmaDickfit · 24-06-2022 12:25pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119241768#Comment_119241768

he's the Irish Bob Ross ! lol

George White · 03-07-2022 2:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119187944#Comment_119187944

Also, his other schtick, the 'my dad was nearly James Bond' was as I can ascertain, exagerrated.

I'm not saying Mike Bishop didn't audition to be Bond, but the fact it is, every male actor, model, TV continuity announcer/broadcaster in Britain if not the Commonwealth, and a few ex-servicemen who were tall and handsome and somewhere between 25 and 40 (with a few outside the age bracket) auditioned. I wouldn't be surprised if the number of auditionees totalled over 5 digits.

Sure, I wouldn't be surprised if Terry Wogan who used to say that he was turned down for having big ears was telling the truth. Simon Dee and Peter Snow auditioned.

So, yeah, Mike Bishop probably auditioned, but Des claims he screen-tested. I'm not sure, because if he did, then he did not get into the final group before they chose Lazenby. That final group included John Richardson, who was in Hammer's She and One Million Years BC and three other guys who were utter non-entities - Anthony Rogers (not Anton Rodgers per some claim), Robert Campbell and Hans de Vries.

And certainly, I've never seen his name up come outside Des' own stuff.

Never in the long list of names online of actors who were considered.

ohnonotgmail · 03-07-2022 3:31pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119284256#Comment_119284256

By an odd coincidence I am watching the film She with John Richardson as I type this.

RabbleRouser2k · 06-07-2022 4:55am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119284256#Comment_119284256

Yeah, but the title 'My dad was never even considered to play James Bond, and I'm stretching the truth so hard I've broken something' doesn't have the same ring to it.

I did watch that special. I found it moving, but then I was coming from a similar experience to what Des's family went through. (Lost my dad to cancer, many years before he did. Different cancer though). So I understood the complex emotions that you deal with during such a time. It was flawed, but it was one of the few things I found he genuinely put his heart into. Wasn't just some pretentious twaddle like he has made in more recent times.

Mr Clever · 06-07-2022 5:54am

Odhran

WillmaDickfit · 06-07-2022 11:40am

actually haven't seen much of Hector recently, I know he's doing a podcast with Tommy Tiernan but haven't seen him on the TV. have the Galway races ads started yet even "let yourself gooooo" !!

RabbleRouser2k · 07-07-2022 3:14am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119297574#Comment_119297574

He nearly always returns to TG4. He's starting to wear a hat now, cos the hair is going and 'brushing it forward' isn't working for him.

cml387 · 08-07-2022 10:27am

I'm not sure if she was mentioned before but readers of a certain age will remember Yvonne Costelloe flaunting herself in front of the press and scandalising the nation back in the 1970's.

Ireland's first glamour model (and former Miss Ireland), no edition of the Sunday Independent was complete without a photo of the buxom wench.

RabbleRouser2k · 08-07-2022 10:48am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119307753#Comment_119307753

Googled her. She's a psychic now. 60 quid a reading.

She popped up in Fair City. Thought this was a gag, but no, she played a character. They've had some.... odd... choices on that soap.

https://stillslibrary.rte.ie/indexplus/image/1083/001.html

WillmaDickfit · 08-07-2022 3:22pm

May McFettridge , my apologies if the entertainer has passed away

L1011 · 08-07-2022 3:29pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119309454#Comment_119309454

Still working. UTV making less and less local content and also not being on cable anymore / sky at all without faffing means most people don't get exposed to weird Nordie stuff

ohnonotgmail · 08-07-2022 6:26pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119309477#Comment_119309477

And for that we should be grateful. They made Mrs Brown look like the height of sophistication

George White · 10-07-2022 10:50pm

RE:Yyonne Costello/e, seems she did do some 'dolly' roles in Britain - a bit part in the Morecambe and Wise Show and an appearance in the David Niven heister A Nightingale Sangin Berkeley Square. Not exactly taxing work, but some experience, perhaps not with dialogue though.

Hangdogroad · 11-07-2022 8:40am

Might have been mentioned before, Aidan Walsh, outsider musician/eccentric character. He had a brief brush with mainstream fame of a sort in the late 80s when he made a few memorably bizarre RTE appearances in particular on the music quiz Number One. I'd largely forgotten about him till the documentary about him came out in 2000. Think I last heard of him when some terrible looking movie he started in or directed was featured on the Blizzard Of Odd.