Tom Murphy:Tom Murphy, who died in a Dublin hospital last Saturday at the age of 39, was a remarkably versatile actor who revelled in challenging roles. There was applause in his honour at Dublin Theatre Festival productions across the city when the news was announced.
In 1998 he won American theatre's highest honour, the Tony award, when he was named best featured actor for his performance in Druid Theatre Company's Broadway production of Martin McDonagh's play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane.
Garry Hynes, who directed him in that play, said: "Tom Murphy was a much loved friend and colleague. He was a great member of the company, and we are all terribly saddened at his premature loss - a loss to Irish theatre and Irish film."
Tom Murphy was born in Zimbabwe, where his father, a native of Longford, was working as a builder and met his mother, a nurse from Cork. The family moved back to Ireland when Tom was very young and he grew up in Dublin, where he has been acting since childhood. "It wasn't something that I had to decide about doing," he said in an interview with The Irish Times in 2004.
"It was just something that I always did." He made his professional debut as the Artful Dodger in Noel Pearson's production of Oliver! When he was nine, he played the young Christy Brown in Peter Sheridan's adaptation of Down All the Days, which Jim Sheridan directed. He went on to major in Drama at Trinity College, Dublin, where he became even more immersed in acting at the college dramatic society, Players.
To avoid confusion with an English actor named Tom Murphy, he was sometimes credited as Tom Jordan Murphy. His many notable stage performances included roles in plays as diverse as Juno and the Paycock, Borstal Boy, True Lines, A Life, Troilus and Cressida, and Shining City.
Murphy first acted in The Beauty Queen of Leenane at Druid's base in Galway, and the production went on to the West End of London and then to Broadway, where it ran for over a year. It received six Tony nominations and won four awards at the ceremony, including best featured actor for Murphy.
"I was thrilled to get the nomination," he said, "and I couldn't believe it when I won the thing. One actor, Sam Tramell, was supposed to be a shoo-in to win, so I just went along for the do. Armani gave me a suit and Gucci gave me shoes. When my name was read out, it felt like time stopped. I had to be pushed out of my seat to go up and accept it. It was like an out of body experience." After he won the award, an American agent suggested he should move to Los Angeles, but Murphy went to London and starred in two controversial productions, Mark Ravenhill's Handbag and Sarah Kane's Blasted.
One of Ireland's most adventurous and versatile young actors, Murphy relished the variety of roles his work offered him, and there was never any fear that he would be typecast. Although he had been playing meaty theatre roles for years, substantial cinema parts somehow evaded him until 2004.
Then he demonstrated his flair for comedy when director Paddy Breathnach cast him with Allen Leech and Ciaran Nolan as the three young Belfast chancers at the centre of a greyhound racing scam in Man About Dog. The film was highly successful at Irish cinemas. Breathnach said this week: "Tom was just so vital. There was no one like him. He was a fantastic actor, but was very humble about it, and he really gave himself to every role." Murphy featured as Shamie Donoghue in several episodes of the RTÉ series Pure Mule, and for his performance he was voted best television actor of the year at the 2005 Irish Film and Television Academy awards. His most recent TV role was as Fr Jason Brazil, in the series, Trouble in Paradise.
His outstanding screen performance, however, was in the film, Adam & Paul (2004), a critically acclaimed low-budget production in which he and Mark O'Halloran played a couple of hapless Dublin junkies.
"It's an awful tragedy that Tom has left us so soon," said O'Halloran, who also wrote the screenplay for the film.
"Tom achieved a great deal in a short time. He had no ego whatsoever and was an incredibly kind man. Everyone who knew him will miss him terribly."
Lenny Abrahamson, the director of Adam & Paul, said: "It was a privilege to work with Tom. He was an artist, one of the greatest actors of his generation. I've no doubt that he had many more wonderful performances in him that we now will never see." Murphy's last film role was playing the grieving father of a hit-and-run victim in Small Engine Repair, which was released here in July. His final stage performance was in a touring Corn Exchange production, Dublin by Lamplight.
"Tom was the gentlest person you could meet, and a lovable rascal," Teri Hayden, his agent for the past 20 years, said this week, "and he was always so caring." He is survived by his sisters Sheila and Mary and his actor brother Michael.
Tom Murphy: born Zimbabwe, January 15th, 1968; died Dublin, October 6th, 2007.