It's an interesting notion that, according to a recent obituary, the late lamented Gene Autry, while working after school as a telegraph office operator, "wiled" away the time between Morse code messages by strumming his guitar.
Farewell, Gene. And goodbye Roddy McDowall, also newly departed. Both wiled away their time on this Earth with some style.
Style, is it. Am I going to be drawn into the style "controversy" initiated by Paul Costelloe, and stirred up by the media? Am I going to "take issue" with the eminent designer's remarks about Irish women, many hundreds of them known personally to me? Am I going to defend their interests? Can they not do the job themselves?
No, no, no and yes. But having read the small print, I note that Mr Costelloe says that when we Irish think of style, we should be thinking of "Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man."
Good man, Paul. On this, I am with you all the way. We need the vision of The Quiet Man, and everything it implies, apart perhaps from John Wayne. Style is not merely a matter of clothes. It is an entire way of life. And we want to halt this uncivilised headlong rush into a culture of acquisition and consumption and designer labels and greed. That is not - literally - our style, not if we are to preserve an Irish image we can be proud of. We most forge a style of life to suit us, one that is uniquely ours. We must bring the old decencies back.
It is ironic then that at least some of the relics of auld dacency would appear to have resided in an American cowboy singer and a classic English actor, the two newly-deceased figures already mentioned.
But they, and our nation, and even The Quiet Man, are linked. (You can add "inextricably" if you are up to it). John Ford, who (of course) directed The Quiet Man, also directed the film that made Roddy McDowall's name as a child actor: the Oscar-winning How Green Was My Valley. And McDowall's mother was Irish - a woman so dominant that according to one writer, she feigned a heart attack every time her family didn't do what she wanted.
That particular style, we will try to avoid.
As for Gene Autry, there must be many people who still recall his visit to Dublin in September 1939, just after the second World War had broken out. The Singing Cowboy's parade on the city streets drew a crowd estimated at 75,000 people, the largest crowd ever assembled in Ireland of the time. And his films were then breaking Irish box-office records.
And auld dacencies? Like respect for one's parents? The first song Gene Autry wrote, That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine, sold 1.5 million copies. As for Roddy McDowall, he solved the problem with his control freak mother (who had effectively robbed him of his substantial income as a child actor) by leaving his luxury home in Los Angeles when he was 24 and giving the home to his parents. Are you listening, kids?
Both Autry and McDowall, while hugely successful, were modest men. Indeed, some critics of the time thought Gene Autry in particular had much to be modest about: one wrote in some bafflement about how the man could succeed so well on screen with little more than "a soft voice, a shy style and peaceful looks". Another, perhaps irritated by the fact that all the Autry films (close to 100 westerns) contained only five basic plots and two locations (mountains or desert), wrote off the Singing Cowboy as "a weak and colourless actor and only a passable action performer".
But Autry himself was ahead of the posse as always. He pre-empted and disarmed all criticism, and never pretended to any great talent: "I'm no great actor. I'm no great rider. I'm no great singer. But whatever it is I've got, they seem to like it".
They did, and what he had was style.
Meanwhile, Roddy McDowall, who as a child actor possessed, according to one obituarist, "large, expressive eyes, polite English tones and earnest sincerity", seemed never to have lost those attractive qualities. (Unlikely he would lose his eyes, but you get my meaning). A fine actor on screen and stage, prime among all his talents was his talent for friendship. When he made a friend, and he made many, he made a friend for life.
In an age of grotesque hype and ridiculous fanfare surrounding the many minuscule talents promoted as genius in every area of culture, these two were the real thing. They had style in spades.
