Still crazy after all these years

As the minuscule dictaphone is placed down on the table, David Kelly says, in his instantly recognisable thespian accent: “They are wonderful. They are so small. The wonderful thing about them is, it stops men saying mine is bigger than yours! Now they are saying mine is smaller than yours!”

The 78-year-old veteran character actor, who is accurately described on the Wikipedia page devoted to him as having “quirky looks”, started performing in the Gaiety Theatre at the tender age of eight. Since his screen debut in 1957, Kelly has appeared constantly on television and in films. He’s played lots of small parts in big films and as many big parts in small films. He had blink-and-you’ll-miss ‘em roles in the likes of The Italian Job and Straight Time, but the movie parts have gotten bigger as he’s headed towards retirement age. When I point out to him that career-wise, the last 15 years have been amazingly good, Kelly laughs.
“They’ve been great,” he agrees, “because all the competition is dead – they’re all gone!”
Joking aside, Kelly acknowledges that things could have turned out very differently. As he revealed during this very personal interview, he might – like many of Ireland’s leading actors and writers – have drunk himself into an early grave. Instead, he knocked the booze on the head and focused on the work. From that moment on, things clicked for him. After his appearances in Fawlty Towers and Strumpet City, bigger offers started to roll in, particularly for TV shows and theatre. Kelly then had a co-starring role in Roman Polanski’s Pirates, followed by a solid performance in Jim Sheridan’s Into The West. He belatedly hit the big time Stateside in 1998, when he played the lead role in Waking Ned, which resulted in a Best Actor nomination from the Screen Actors Guild. It was a film that also turned him into an unusual sex symbol – thanks to his ‘Full Monty’ scenes – for the OAP generation!
More recently he has appeared as Grandpa Joe in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and alongside the likes of Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer in the blockbuster Stardust. Since Kelly’s enduring performance as Grandpa Joe, he has been discovered by a new, younger generation. This is evident when, moments after this interview is finished, he’s approached by an excited teenage girl as we stroll down Wicklow Street.
“Next time you’re in Hollywood, please tell Johnny Depp that I was asking for him!” she giggles. Kelly turns to me.“You wouldn’t believe how frequently that occurs to me these days,” he smiles.
But despite the hundreds of television and movie roles, he’s perhaps best known in the acting world for his work in the theatre, which culminated in an ESB Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. He lives in Dublin with his wife – the actress Laurie Morton, with whom he has two children – and their dog Max.

Jason O’Toole: Back in the ‘50 and ‘60s, you worked with many of the legends from the Irish acting and writing community. It must have been a very Bohemian culture in Dublin back then.
David Kelly: Absolutely – and I’m delighted that you asked me that because I’m sick and tired of 12-year-olds telling us how terrible the ’50s and ’60s were, that it was this grey town. And if you didn’t go to Mass, a priest would jump out of a bush and beat you to death. It’s so tiresome because they weren’t bloody well there and they don’t know. Of course there was poverty, but nothing like the poverty that existed in London, Paris and Berlin. It was a wonderful town and the people were a great deal nicer. Wonderful things were happening in the theatre and in the arts. Certain writers said, “The whole place was grey.” It was grey inside the pubs where a lot of them stayed – about to write the great novel, which they never did. And if you go into the same pubs today, they’re still pretty grey (laughs).
Many of your acting contemporaries spent a lot of time in the two pubs – The Plough and The Flowing Tide – near The Abbey.
You see, we’re in a job like journalists, where basically we’re free to drink. Back then, in the acting profession, you were free during the day and playing at night, but then you could take off afterwards. Or, if you were rehearsing, you were doing that during part of the day and were free at night. So, it was easy to drink. Also, it was considered kind of stylish for writers and actors to drink. “Like, me and Hemingway – we drink heavily!” (Laughs). I drank quite heavily, but I never drank with him. He never asked! There was a certain kind of kudos connected with the drinking. Thank God, that’s gone – it’s no longer considered that smart.
Did you ever have a problem with alcohol?
I would never deny the fact that I’m an alcoholic. I don’t drink and I haven’t had a drink for 35 years, which is great. I’ve a lot of people to thank for that, and especially my good friend Ray McAnally because he had gone through it himself. When I woke up in the Home For The Bewildered, here was this snug, well-dressed gentleman sitting at the end of the bed. And I thought, “Oh, God, not Ray! Go away. Leave me alone.” And he didn’t. He stayed with me, putting up with the most appalling abuse from me – and the most appalling language mixed with the abuse (laughs). But he never left me alone, he was with me every day. He was at the other end of the phone for me up until the day he died. A great and loyal friend.
How did your problem with drink start?
I went to London in 1949, had a look at Big Ben and thought, “How lovely,” and got a pain in my belly as it struck – and I went down like a ton of bricks. It turned out to be an ulcer. When I was on stage I’d have to time the vomiting – from the pain – which eased the pain for an hour-and-a-half between takes. One worked under extraordinary difficulties. It wasn’t a question of giving up drink, but I couldn’t drink – I’d have a bottle of stout and if I had a second bottle of stout I’d keel over with pain. I got it when I was 20 and the doctor kept saying, “Have the operation,” which was a dodgy operation back then. I woke up one day and I was 40 – and I had this illness half of my life – and the Abbey Theatre rang, asking me to play Lazarus. I thought, “Jaysus, I knew I looked bad – but they want me to play Lazarus!” So I went in for the operation and I was out in three weeks – cured. Ulcer gone. I never looked back.
So, when you hit the booze, it was a case of making up for lost time?
There was time to be made up. I poured out the vodka and there was no reaction at all – except happiness! And the next few years – though very forgetful – were very happy! I think I’m a reasonably civilised man, but I did drink like an animal for a period after that. I was an alcoholic. I am an alcoholic.
Do you regret that?
Oh, Jesus yes. There are whole periods of the ’60s I don’t remember. It’s the classic saying, if you remember the ’60s, you weren’t there! I recall being asked if I can remember where I was the day Kennedy was shot and I said I didn’t know he was dead until 1972!
Can you recall your very last drink?
I gave it up on March 28, 1972. It had never interfered with the work, except at the very end. I was playing Oliver Plunkett in The Gate and I was trying everything to get it together but I couldn’t stop the shakes. It went badly. And, I thought, “Something has to be done.” I can recall it vividly. It was a fairly large one. Two large vodkas and over to the pub to get a bottle, had a couple there, and came back and finished off the bottle. And then I kind of blacked out. That was the last one. It was a big one, as I say, but it really was the last one. So, I went into the Home For The Bewildered with the blessing of the family. I was determined that this was the last one. And I never missed it. People say, “God, you must have great willpower.” I’ve no willpower at all. It had nothing to do with willpower.
Do you think you’d have ended up dead if you hadn’t stopped drinking?
I can tell you when I would have died. I would have been dead in about 1975/76. That would have given me another three or four years at that rate of drinking. I’d hardly have made that. At the outside I’d have been dead by 1976. And you wouldn’t have had to put up with me (laughs)...
How did your family respond?
They were great because I was just welcomed back with open arms. I didn’t lose my family – I didn’t lose the kids. They hugged me and welcomed me back. I can remember looking and seeing these little eyes, strange, looking at this kind of monster and wondering, “What’s wrong with everybody? Because I’m in great humour.” They’re bad memories. They’ve all not forgotten them, but they’ve certainly never held it against me. And later on, when they were growing up – and maybe coming in a bit late and I was saying, “Where were you until this hour of the night?” – it was never thrown back at me. Never once. I love them dearly for that.
Were you afraid that your children might end up with a drink problem?
I’m delighted that both my kids enjoy drink and they do it very sensibly. I was terrified that the alcoholism might be passed on – or, even worse, that they might turn out to be teetotallers. Neither of those things happened. So, I’ve been a terribly lucky man all round.
Jack Lemmon’s alcoholic character in The Days Of Wine And Roses would hide the bottles. Did you?
Oh, yes. I used to hide the bottles. The only thing I ever planted was a bush in the front garden, a big box bush. And when the winter came, the leaves disappeared off that – there was this wonderful, Disney couldn’t have created it, Christmas scene of these glittering, sparkling jewels in the hedge. They were all empty vodka bottles, which we hadn’t seen when the leaves were on the thing. It was one of the most beautiful scenes – memorable. But you’d hide the bottles under the bed and then the wife would make the bed and take out the bottle and just put it on the table. It would annoy me, so I’d hide it again. I would think, “Maybe she’ll lose her temper and throw it out, so I’d better have another one.” And then you’d forget where you’ve hidden them. We were finding bottles strapped under the table – that’s a very good place, incidentally – and in the garage.
How did your wife handle it?
Terribly well. She was generous enough to regard it, you know, as a disease. I obviously couldn’t help it. It must have been – well, it was – extraordinarily difficult for her. I’m the one who hasn’t got that many memories of the bad times. But, of course, they were sober – they remember. No, the subject was never thrown at me. It was just a welcome home and that was wonderful. So, there is hope...
Did you manage to forgive yourself?
I’m the only one who hasn’t fully forgiven myself. It’s alright to say, “It was the drink – it wasn’t you,” but it was a bad scene. I used to think that maybe my career is gone, or whatever, because it’s a small town. But it never happened and they invited me back to The Gate a year later. I came out of hospital and I was pretty shaky. Hugh Leonard said, “You better get well soon because you’re doing a play called The Virgins, which I’ve written for you, for Thames Television. And you’re cast!” And I said, “What? In three weeks? I can’t do it!” He said, “Yes, you can, because you’re booked. We fixed it with your agent.” I was terrified. Jaysus, if they just saw me – because I wasn’t well! He said, “Yes, you are – you skinny whore!” (Laughs).
Were you depressed?
No, I was just worried. The first year, I suppose, I used to get peripheral neurosis, I think you call it. This tingling sensation on the lip when passing a pub – as if you were walking along the edge of a cliff. They say the temptation is always subconsciously there: Will I go mad suddenly and jump? The worry that something will happen and I’ll go in and have a drink – and that worry would make me break out in beads of sweat. I never did, but the fear was there that I’d do it and ruin everything. Ray’s policy would be to never let any alcohol near his house. He’d say, keep it away. I mean, you only have to reach out your hand to get a bottle – you don’t even have to go to a pub. I approached it differently. I don’t advise other people to do this but, I thought, I’ve got to live with it – so my house is like a distillery. I pour an awful lot of booze because all my friends drink. I pour but I just don’t take any myself. If I can’t stay sober with a bottle of vodka in my hand I’m gone. You’ve got to live with it. Now, that is not recommended by AA and I’m not recommending it to anyone. In my house, I’ve got to do it that way.
You must have socialised with Brian O Nualláin (aka Myles na Gopaleen and Flann O’Brien), who was a legendary drinker?
Oh, yeah. I think he was a great writer but he could be very grumpy. And I brought him to Mercers Hospital because he’d fallen off the stool and wasn’t in a good way. Then I dropped in to see him and he had gone! When I got back he was sitting up in the bar at Neary’s. That’s where we all sat. There’s a famous story told about the wrong people. It was not Brendan Behan – it was Sean O’Sullivan, the painter, Myles na Gopaleen, and Jimmy O’Dea in the Holy Hour, standing outside Neary’s with the tears rolling down their eyes, saying, “There’s no characters left in Dublin! Ah, Dublin’s changed.” And there were the three of them. That’s a true story, but it has done the rounds and has turned into Brendan Behan and somebody else. I can remember another funny incident: I had a great artist friend, Tom Murray, who was terribly upset because he couldn’t get his medication. And O’Sullivan said, “Why?” And Tom said because it’s closed for lunch. And he said, “We’ll open it!” and he went over and kicked the door in.
Thankfully, drinking didn’t stop you from going on to produce an amazing body of work.
Ah, thanks. I’ve done my best.
You starred in one of my favourite Irish films, Quackser Fortune Has A Cousin In The Bronx, alongside Gene Wilder.
That was fun. Gene was very pleasant, but I was disappointed with him because he bitched about Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. He said very nasty things about it. That, I thought, was unpardonable. And then to prove how unpardonable it was, he admitted that he hadn’t seen it! I thought, “Oh, Gene! Very vulgar. You are a bitch for that.” I thought that was nasty. We said very nice things about him during the Charlie interviews. Incidentally, we didn’t tell him that Roald Dahl went to his grave hating every second of Willie Wonka because, for a start, it was Charlie And The Chocolate Factory – but you couldn’t say Charlie during the Vietnam War because it meant something else; so they had to change it to Willie Wonka – that annoyed Dahl because Charlie is the main character and Willie Wonka isn’t a very nice man and the child saves him.
How did you get the part of Grandpa Joe in the Tim Burton version?
My agent said, “I think you’re going to end up in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.” And I said, “That’ll be the day.” Tim’s people rang up and said, “Is there any chance that you could get to London tomorrow?” And I said, “Well, it so happens that I will be in London tomorrow.” I was going over for a custom fitting to Pinewood and Tim’s people said, “Can you be in Pinewood?” And I said I would be there and they said, “This is meant to happen.” Zanuck met me at the gate and said, “Come on in and meet Tim.” I went in and he said, “I won’t hold you up, David. Just one question: This is going to take six months – and looking at that frame – is there a problem there?” I said no. I still wasn’t quite sure if I was getting Grandpa Joe or the other grandpa. Tim said, “That’s the only question. I think we’re in business. That’s great,” and he said to Zanuck, “You know, David says fine, so get onto his agent.” Three minutes later I was over getting fitted for Nanny McPhee. It took three minutes. People asked were the auditions very hard? No auditions. I was just handed the thing on a plate.
It must be a long time since you’ve had to audition for a part?
Oh, I never audition. I’ve lost parts over that, but auditions are stupid. I will read worse than anybody you’ve ever met. If you don’t know my work – or you haven’t seen it – you are not going to tell by my reading whether I can act. A big director in Hollywood asked me if I’d come up and audition. But my agent explained that I didn’t audition. He said, “That’s alright. I respect that.” I went up in a taxi to the BBC and there he was – I won’t mention his name to anybody – and he said, “Will you read that for me?” I said, “You know very well that I won’t read.” He said, “That’s stupid... what kind of ego...” I said, “I don’t know your work! Would you like to show me a couple of your films?” He said, “You have a fucking nerve!” I said, “That’s exactly the way I feel.” But I didn’t get the part (laughs).
Did you hit it off with Johnny Depp?
We had a great time together. To show just what a magic guy Johnny is: he came over to me and said, “You’re from Dublin. You must know the work of Harry Clarke; do you?” Now, you don’t expect that from a young Hollywood star. To know Harry Clarke, the great stain glass artist who died in the late ’30s. I said, “How do you know Harry Clarke?” He said, “Oh, I have two of his cartoons at home. Two of the charcoal drawings for some Dublin church window.” We were also both jazz fans. He was a great personal friend of the clarinettist – what’s his name? Not Benny Goodman, better than Benny, the greatest of them all. It will come to me – and he gave me some of his records that had been given to him. We used to swap records. In the lifetime achievement thing, Johnny made a lovely video, which was shown and sent to me, saying, “You’re my hero and always will be.” He said the most beautiful things about me and then it had Clive Owen, and a whole load of other wonderful people, saying nice things about me. It nearly reduced me to tears. It was terribly moving.
You’re so hip now you’ve even appeared in a Playstation game.
Yes and, of course, being a sex symbol in Waking Ned! (Laughs). It was great fun being totally naked on a motorbike! I was worried about the motorbike because I’d never driven anything in my life. They said, “It’ll be dead easy. It’ll only be about 35 miles an hour.” Thirty-five miles an hour is Steve McQueen as far as I’m concerned! In the scene, he has to be naked because he can’t get into his clothes quick enough. He has his helmet and boots on, but he is stark naked, and says, “Ah, to hell with it,” and jumps up onto his bike and takes off. But they made a bit of – I don’t know what you’d call it – an elastic pouch to cover one’s embarrassment. But the cameraman said, “I’ve bad news, you are so bloody skinny! Underneath the brakes I can see the indentation of the elastic. Would you mind getting rid of it?” And, at this stage, I knew I was going to meet my maker in a very short time (laughs). I was frozen – and I was going to die anyway – so I didn’t give a damn and I took it off. We did it nude. I think a lot of old ladies who were out for walks had several heart attacks!
That film was well received in America, resulting in you being nominated for some top awards there.
I was nominated alongside Billy Bob Thornton, Ed Harris and Robert Duvall for the Screen Actors Guild, which is arguably bigger than the Oscars in Hollywood. We were all sitting together and it was great to see the four nominations coming up. It went to Robert Duvall, who deserved it of course, and he’s one of my favourite actors. But to be in that company is a huge honour. Duvall said, “Nobody remembers who wins – but they do remember who’s nominated.” At least 5,500 Hollywood actors voted for me, or I wouldn’t have been in that position. I also won the Golden Satellite Award, in Hollywood, as the best performance by an actor in a musical or a comedy film.
Despite the accolades, you didn’t stay and make movies in Hollywood. Why not?
I was offered a seven-year contract after Waking Ned. It was a company that represented one of the big studios. I thought, “What am I going to do in Hollywood in my 70s? At this age, am I going to uproot my home in Dublin and move to Hollywood, which is the ugliest place in the world, to do shit for seven years?” My son says, “It’s rather camp to be offered a Hollywood contract, but isn’t it much camper to say no?!” (Laughs)
But why didn’t you try Hollywood earlier, back in the ’60s or ’70s?
Oh, if somebody had offered me a role – God, yeah. I talked to Clive Owen when they discovered him. Clive was offered a two-year contract – and he was doing nice work with the National Theatre in England – and he said, “I’ll never forget it. I jumped at Hollywood. I sometimes used to cry, sitting outside in the car, to go in and do shit – when I could be back in London, with less money, but doing my job. Doing beautiful work.” And he said that was the worst period. So, I said I’d turned down seven-years and he said, “Very wise.” You don’t do that in your 70s, for God’s sake!
Do you think the booze restricted your career?
It wasn’t that at all. You didn’t get the chance to do films in Ireland. We had one of the most beautiful studios in the world in Ardmore, and English and American films would come in. If you were an actor in the Abbey you might get a few lines as a walk-on. But there was no Irish film industry. It’s not that long since they started to make films here. At the time, we used to ask Ardmore, “Could we have the studios? We’ve got the actors; we’ve got cameramen; we’ve got writers – we can make films. And we’d do it on shares.” They would say, “Oh, no. You have to pay the rent.” And it sat there. Through my lifetime – 50 years – that sat there. We used it – one of the major studios – to rehearse Glenroe. It was madness.
Should actors be exempt from paying tax?
They should be, of course, because they are creative artists. Charlie Haughey always intended to do it. We spoke to him about it and he said, “I have a difficulty there because we’d have to use the word entertainer.” And he said that would include fellas strumming a guitar and pretending to be artists and, he said, there’d be a revolution. He said we have to get the actors and, indeed, variety separated somehow. He’d already done it for the writers and is rarely given credit for it – especially by some of the writers, which is extraordinary! He was responsible for The Gate getting its grant. He was great for the arts.
I won’t mention any names – but there are some young Irish actors appearing in films who might look good but can’t really act.
No – because you can’t do it without the groundwork. You can’t do it without the absolute desire and passion to come across those wonderful moments that happen – not all that often – where you are actually transported and there’s a kind of ecstasy, which doesn’t last a run. It may not last for a whole performance. But there are those moments when you know why you are doing it. That is a kind of magic. Nowadays, the kids are not coming in because they are dying to act – they are coming in hoping to be rich and famous. They want to go to Hollywood and become Colin Farrell or Liam Neeson. It won’t happen. The schools are churning them out. Everywhere you look there are acting students.
You worked with Roman Polanski on the Pirates film. Did you ever discuss his penchant for young girls and, in particular, the time he was arrested for having sex with a minor?
I know all about the scandal. He told me the story about how he was going to go to Sing Sing prison forever – that was a set-up. I’ve seen the photographs of her – and she was only 14-and-a-half as it turns out – but, by God, she was a well made 14-and-a-half. Her mammy had sent her over to Polanski to be photographed in the nude for the magazine. He was very upfront about the little weakness – and liking young girls. It is totally untrue to say that he fancied children. He was not a paedophile. He liked young girls. You are talking about 18 and that. He said to me once, “I don’t know what the fuss is! Don’t you like younger women?” And I said, “At my age, there isn’t any other sort!”
Did Polanski ever confide in you about the murder of his actress wife, Sharon Tate?
Yes. The man had a horrendous life – the murder of his wife and the unborn child. They (the Manson Family) ripped her open and the child was murdered as well. And, of course, he had such a bad name because of the film he made, Rosemary’s Baby. He just made that when Sharon Tate was murdered and the small minds thought, “Oh, that gang! They are all into dope and black magic.” People were very nasty. He got a bill the next day for blood on the carpet. And he was under suspicion. He told me that he was pathological himself about it – you’d have a drink with him and he’d take away your glass to match the fingerprints to the thing. A terribly sad life. A great director. Terribly loyal to his actors. We got on well.
What’s your favourite role?
I always say my next one! I suppose it would have to be Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. It’s beautiful. I played that in 1959 – probably the second or the third production of it anywhere. And I’ve been playing it all through the ’90s – in Australia, three tours in America, and Spain. I’ve played it everywhere. Over 50 years, between theatre and film, you do so much that it’s really very hard to say which is your favourite. But that was terribly important to me. One churns out a lot of rubbish over a lifetime but one hopes that, as well as the rubbish, there’s some that’s very good. The great thing about growing old is that your memory slips and, happily, you tend to forget the bad.
You’ll always be remembered for playing the hapless Irish builder O’Reilly in Fawlty Towers.
That’ll be on my gravestone! I get cheques from all over the place for that – usually for six pence or something like that. They repeat it so much that you do get a little kind of pension. I’m very big in Malawi! I only had nine minutes playing time in it. They are great scenes – terribly funny. It grows in people’s minds – they think you were in all of them. As Manuel pointed out to me, “We broke our asses doing it and they all say, ‘Oh, I love the one with O’Reilly, the builder’. And I’ve counted the bloody thing – you’re nine minutes in it.” It’s actually one of John Cleese’s favourites. The first six were far better than the other six. He didn’t want to do the second series, but the BBC wanted another six episodes because it was huge. They are wonderful, but the first six really are gems. Do you know what type of audience we had for that episode? They’d gone down to Thomas Cook and they’d got three coach loads of tourists from Iceland. As John said, they were sitting there thawing out and smelling of fish blubber! And they frankly wanted to be somewhere else (laughs).
You worked with Laurence Olivier, just before his death, in The Jigsaw Man.
I had one scene that took the whole day to film with Laurence Olivier – just the two of us. He was wonderful to play to. He was very sick. He was dying. When you do the reverse shots you want a stand-in actor, but for somebody of Oliver’s standards I stood in while he did his lines, but on the reverse they said, “Larry, you needn’t stay. David doesn’t mind if somebody stands there as an eye line.” But he said, “No, no. I wouldn’t do that to an actor.” And I said, “Please, I don’t mind,” because he was promised rest. But he wouldn’t go. He stayed there and he was like falling down tired, but he fed me the lines and then he’d say, “Is that OK? Is that position OK?” Beautiful, beautiful man.
Do you have any disappointments or regrets about your career?
No, because – I think it’s especially something alcoholism teaches you – regrets are a waste of bloody time. Regrets? I’ve had a few but, then again, too few to mention. Forget it. You are wasting your time and God’s time. Just don’t do it again (laughs).
Are you going to continue acting?
I’d never retire. I think retiring is a very vulgar word. You know, the people in ordinary jobs who work all their lives doing a job they hate, make a lot of money and have a second house and a fourth car, and retire at 60 and go on a cruise, have a heart attack and die! That’s a terrible life. I’d never retire – I just do far less now.