Joseph O'Conor

Joseph O'Conor
Born	14 February 1916 Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland
Died	21 January 2001 (aged 84) London, England
Occupation	Actor

Joseph O'Conor (14 February 1916 – 21 January 2001) was an Irish actor and playwright.

O'Conor was born in Dublin on 14 February 1916, the son of Frances (née Call) and Daniel O'Conor. His family moved to London, where he attended the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, the University of London and RADA. He made his professional stage debut in 1939 playing Flavius, Trebonius, and Titinius in a modern-dress production of Julius Caesar at the Embassy Theatre, and subsequently at His Majesty's Theatre. Also in 1939 he married Naita Moore; they had two children.

Returning to the stage in 1946, he played a wide variety of roles in London, but with an emphasis on Shakespeare. He spent a season under Donald Wolfit at the Bedford, Camden Town, alternating Iago and Othello with him in Othello (1949) and taking the title role in Hamlet (1949), with Wolfit as the Gravedigger.

O'Conor had a strong spiritual side which found expression in a series of productions at religious-drama festivals and as Christ in the York Mystery Plays (1951 and 1954). A prohibition on the representation of God or Christ on the public stage still existed in England at that time, so his name for the 1951 production was kept a secret.

Seeking a change from London he played two seasons at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow where his roles included Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing (1954). This he followed with three seasons (1956–1958) at the Bristol Old Vic. Bristol acted in several Bernard Shaw classics. O'Conor played Higgins in Pygmalion and Undershaft in Major Barbara. There was also a production of his own early play, The Iron Harp, set in his Ireland. O'Conor wrote five others.

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