Maureen Potter, probably the most popular entertainer of the 20th century in Ireland, was born in Fairview, Dublin, in 1925. A mere 10 years later she was appearing in Jack and the Beanstalk as a fairy, having been discovered performing in a concert party in Bray, Co Wicklow, by Jimmy O'Dea, the man she said taught her all she knew about performing on the stage.
Her career path had probably been laid five years previously when she set out the condition that, if she was to attend St Mary's national school in Philipsburgh Avenue in Fairview, she had to attend dancing classes as well. Her supportive parents enrolled her in Jewel Byrne's dancing school in the local CYMS hall and two years later, at the age of seven, she became the All-Ireland junior dancing champion.
Recognising her talent, Ms Byrne advised changing from her dancing classes to those run by Connie Ryan in the city centre where, significantly, the O'Dea Girls - the dancing line for Jimmy O'Dea's stage shows - trained and rehearsed their routines. Dancing would remain for her the favourite component of the entertainment she provided for her faithful audiences and she expressed particular satisfaction with a number which she, the tap dancer, performed with Brian O'Connor, the traditional Irish dancer, in one of her shows decades later.
Maureen left school at the age of 12 in order to work for Jack Hylton, the English band-leader and impresario who offered her a job as "The Pocket Mimic" in a show he was staging in Dublin's Theatre Royal.
Her tiny stature of four feet, 11½ inches, may have had something to do with Hylton's suggested title for her act, and she often joked with her friends that, with her big eyebrows at the time, she looked more like a dwarf than a small girl. Her talent for mimicry had been noted in a sketch she performed with Jimmy O'Dea in the 1935 pantomime where (as well as playing the fairy) she impersonated Dublin's popular Lord Mayor, Alfie Byrne. After Hylton's season ended at the Theatre Royal, she joined his troupe and travelled to Britain (where she had to use a friend's borrowed birth certificate because she was too young to work legally) to perform all over England, Scotland and Wales.
And then there was the journey to Berlin where the company played in the Scala Theatre in 1938 when Adolf Hitler was invading Austria. Hitler attended a performance with his colleagues Goering and Goebbels, the last two visiting backstage with their wives after the show. She was sent a wreath with words on it from the Führer when the show closed in a hurry (because of the fuss over the invasion of Austria) and the company returned to London.
When war broke out, Maureen was sent back from Liverpool to Dublin and her mother, on being shown the wreath, threw it into the bin with some imprecation about "that filthy man Hitler". In 1939 Maureen was playing with O'Dea in Jimmy and the Leprechaun (pantos were less "traditional" then than they later became) and with Maureen taking the part of the leprechaun, her Irish stage career was fully underway as dancer and comedienne.
Her father, a commercial traveller, had died when she was seven, but her mother continued her support of her daughter in her determined career of annual pantomime and variety shows. Later, that career was to extend into "straight" theatre. Meanwhile, Maureen professed The Pied Piper of Hamelin and Tom Thumb as her favourite pantomimes, the former because it involved children and she always loved playing with kids.
She met Jack O'Leary, a career army officer, in 1943 and took a liking to him. He used to listen to her rehearsing her lines and began suggesting improvements to those lines. Later he would become her primary script-writer, and she married him in 1959. They moved to Clontarf ("real suburbia", she said) where they reared their two sons, Hugh and John, with whom, she said, she had some of the best times of her life.
Had she had to choose between family and professional career, she would have chosen family. Fortunately for herself, her family and countless happy audiences, she never had to make that choice. Her time spent with her family was wholly fulfilling and, while she admitted to hating housework, she greatly enjoyed the supermarket shopping and talking with all who came to talk to her.
Her stage career continued and developed with Jimmy O'Dea until his death in 1965, after which she became the headliner in the annual Christmas pantomimes and further established a yearly summer variety show called Gaels of Laughter, produced by Fred O'Donovan and directed by Jimmy O'Dea's widow, Ursula Doyle, on which the Gaiety Theatre thrived for 15 years.
Maureen's career in "legitimate" theatre began in 1959 in the Olympia Theatre where she took over from Marie Keane in a production of Denis Johnston's The Golden Cuckoo. In the same theatre and the same year she played the role of Katie Fox in a Hilton Edwards and Micheál Mac Liammóir production of The Informer. And she played at the Gaiety in Cyril Cusack's production of Shaw's Androcles and the Lion. There followed a lull in her career as a straight actor until 1980 when she played the villainous Miss Hannigan in the Gaiety's production of the musical Annie with huge success. Thereafter came her appearance with Siobhán McKenna in Arsenic and Old Lace in the Dublin Theatre Festival, which confirmed a strong and lasting friendship between the tragedienne and the comedienne.
In 1986 she took the part of Maisie Madigan in Joe Dowling's landmark production of Juno and the Paycock at the Gate Theatre, touring later to New York and, among other places, Israel. It was significant that in Israel many people born in Dublin who had migrated came to see Maureen after the show, mostly to tell her of the great pleasure her pantomimes had given them and their children at the Gaiety.
Other dramas in which she played included The School for Scandal (as Mrs Candour), O'Casey's Shadow of a Gunman (Mrs Henderson), Hugh Leonard's Moving, and Moliere's Tartuffe. Meanwhile she continued creating the gallery of characters who peopled her appearances in variety and her contributions to radio.
She appeared also in a few films, including Joseph Strick's adaptations from Joyce of Ulysses and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but claimed she hated filming and disliked television (although The Maureen Potter Show topped the television Tam ratings in the final week of 1973 on RTÉ). Her favourite professional activity was always the Christmas pantomime at the Gaiety and all those gleefully participative children.
She always gave it her all, even down to calling out the names of children in the audience at the end of each show, particularly those who were celebrating birthdays. She never read out from a list: she always memorised the names given to her in the interval and called them out from memory at the curtain call, on one night actually calling out the names of 67 small and delighted members of her audience.
A woman of diminutive height, she displayed boundless energy and enthusiasm on the stage and a huge generosity in her personal and professional life, whether on the gilt-limned stage of the Gaiety or in the more intimate spaces of the cabaret venues of the Braemor Rooms or Clontarf Castle, where she played many times on a regular basis.
Twice, in 1986 and 1987, she was prevented from appearing in her beloved Christmas pantomime by a recurrent diverticulitis, and eventually she had to pay the price of her life-long energetic dancing when she was disabled by arthritis in her hips and knees, which required joint replacements.
While her main personal satisfaction came from the laughter and applause of her adoring audiences, not to mention her loving family, Maureen Potter received many public honours. In 1988 she received a special Harvey's Award (then the main formal recognition of excellence in Irish theatre) for her services to the theatre. In 1984 she had been granted the Freedom of the City of Dublin by Dublin Corporation. She was also granted Life Membership of Irish Actors' Equity, her profession's trade union. In 1988 she was conferred with an honorary degree by the University of Dublin.
Potter retired from the Gaiety panto in 1987, when her arthritis became too severe for her to endure daily and nightly performances. However she continued to perform, when her health allowed.
In January 1996 she returned to the Gaiety, along with Rosaleen Linehan, Des Keogh and Niall Toibín, to take part in a tribute concert for stage director Mai McFall who was recovering from a serious illness. Later that year she played Mrs Henderson in The Shadow Of A Gunman at the Gate, her first O'Casey play since she took the role of Maisie Madigan in Juno And The Paycock in 1986.
In 1999 President McAleese joined Potter's friends and fellow performers in the Gaiety Theatre for a special celebration of her life. In 2001 she returned to the Gaiety to become the first star to place her handprints in the walk of fame outside. In January this year she made her final television appearance on a special Late Late Show to mark the 100th anniversary of the Abbey Theatre.
For all her success and for all her fame and recognition, she remained a loved and loyal friend to many. Always happiest with her family, she enjoyed following sport (particularly cricket and soccer) either live or on television.
In her life, as in her chosen profession, she made a massive contribution to the well-being of her fellow Dubs and to the gaiety of her nation.
(Additional reporting Olivia Kelly)