Dowling, Vincent (1929–2013), theatre actor, director and producer, was born in Kimmage, Dublin, on 7 September 1929 the sixth of four sons and three daughters of William Dowling, a ship's captain, and his wife Mary (née Kelly). His father was violent towards the family and left when Vincent was a toddler. Helped by money provided by a priest, the Dowlings moved in 1934 from the basement of Vincent's maternal uncle's flat in Merrion Square, Dublin, to a house in Mount Merrion, Co. Dublin.
He grew up in a middle class area, but the money sent by his father was not enough for middle class comforts. His mother was regularly away housekeeping for the aforementioned priest who provided financial assistance. (The priest seemingly had a sexual interest in his mother and made advances on his sisters.) In 1942 financial necessity forced the family's move to a smaller residence in Marlborough Road, Donnybrook. He switched school to St Mary's College, Rathmines, having previously attended Kilmacud National School and CBS Dún Laoghaire, both in Co. Dublin.
Dowling was a bright student, but with his fees in arrears, the dean of studies induced him to leave school early in September 1945 for a clerkship with the Standard Life Assurance Company. A few years later, he found his vocation when he accompanied a girlfriend to the academy of acting run by Brendan Smith (qv). He signed up in 1948 for a two-year course during which he performed in and stage-managed academy plays, and stage-managed for Smith's professional company. Upon quitting Standard Life in June 1950, he spent a year touring Ireland with Smith's company, both as an actor and the touring group's manager.
In May 1951 he went to London where he was hired two months later as stage manager of, and for a minor part in, 'My wife's lodger', a farce playing in the West End. He got a bigger part for its twelve-month tour of the British provinces from January 1952, also being cast in the 1952 film version alongside Diana Dors, before touring Britain in 'To see a fine lady – a coronation play' from January to May 1953. In 1952 he had married Brenda Doyle, an actress from Drumcondra, Dublin. She was pregnant with the first of four daughters when he was called up for national service in May 1953.
With a family to support, he returned to Ireland where Smith offered him a summer season at the Little Flower Hall in Bray, Co. Wicklow. His performances there prompted Ireland's national theatre, the Abbey Theatre, based in the Queen's Theatre, Pearse Street, to hire him that September. The Abbey's managing director Ernest Blythe (qv) waived his stipulation that all actors have fluent Irish because he judged correctly that Dowling would look young for many years. (An indifferent showing, on account of his schoolboy Irish, in 'Diarmuid agus Gráinne' (1954) ensured he never got another important part in the Irish language plays following the main event.) Impressing immediately with his professionalism, he usually played rogues, delinquents and jokers, doing so with aplomb.
Content initially with being one of the better actors in an undistinguished troupe, he showed he was capable of more in the Abbey's 1959 and 1962 productions of Eugene O'Neill's harrowing 'Long day's journey into night'. Increasingly, he bemoaned the short rehearsals, non-existent direction and near exclusive focus on trite Irish-written and -themed plays. A socialist and member of Equity's executive council, Dowling for long sought unavailingly to organise the underpaid Abbey actors who, despite much grumbling, submitted to Blythe in return for short hours and lifetime employment. He supplemented his inadequate salary by producing radio programmes, directing amateur dramas, adjudicating at drama festivals, and getting a long-running role (c.1957–1973) in Radio Éireann's popular soap 'The Kennedys of Castlerosse'. He also landed small parts in films and was self-admittedly terrible as the lead in Ardmore Studios's Boyd's Shop (1960).
An infrequent presence in the family home in Shanowen Road, Santry, Co. Dublin, he was a relentless socialiser and serial philanderer, but otherwise conformed scrupulously to catholicism before losing his faith in his mid-thirties. He cultivated an exaggeratedly theatrical persona and when not showcasing his practised repartee, liked to quote poetry, often for seduction purposes, while coating platitudes in golden oratory. Brenda, who appeared in variety shows, had affairs too, one of which produced their third daughter, Valerie. Although aware of this, Dowling acted as the father. The marriage collapsed in 1967 over his relationship with a much younger Abbey actress, Sinéad Cusack, daughter of the renowned actor Cyril Cusack (qv). He surrendered the house and custody of the children, living subsequently in various city centre apartments.
When Blythe refused to implement Labour Court recommendations, Dowling forced him into arbitration in 1964 by persuading his colleagues to serve notice of strike action, just before the Abbey played two high-profile shows in London. This yielded better pay and conditions for the actors and an increased state subsidy for the Abbey along with curbs on Blythe's authority. Crucially, as a regular in the bar at Groome's Hotel, Dowling was friendly with three rising Fianna Fáil politicians, Charles Haughey (qv), Donogh O'Malley (qv) and Brian Lenihan (qv) (1930–95), who had all exerted their influence on his behalf.
He began getting lead roles, acquitting himself satisfactorily as Fluther Good in Seán O'Casey's (qv) 'The plough and the stars' (1966) and as Christy Mahon in J. M. Synge's (qv) 'The playboy of the western world' (1968). He also began directing, initially in 1967 as assistant director, though he had been informally directing his Abbey colleagues for years. In 1968 he directed his first Abbey production, 'The shadow of a gunman', for a performance in Florence, Italy, that received nine curtain calls. Both this and his 1969 production of 'Juno and the paycock' were praised for being more restrained and serious than earlier Seán O'Casey revivals.
The opening of the new Abbey theatre in Lower Abbey Street in 1966 followed by Blythe's retirement in 1967 abetted Dowling's attempts to push the company towards sophisticated, international plays. The ensuing transition, however, highlighted the Abbey's limitations, and Dowling's egotism and intolerance of criticism made him a particular target amid relentlessly hostile reviews. His detractors had cause: although a versatile comedy actor, he struggled with serious roles in plays that were outside the Abbey's traditional repertoire.
From 1970 he acted less and directed more, mainly in the Abbey's smaller affiliated theatre, the Peacock, which did more experimental works. He also directed in other venues. Hindered by tight budgets and by actors that were either too jaded or too raw, his technically accomplished productions were slow-paced and old fashioned. Serving as deputy artistic director of the Abbey (April–December 1971) and director of the Peacock (January–June 1973), he was well regarded in-house, but had no interest in being artistic director, knowing that he would be caught between the conservative governing board and the truculent, permanently employed actors.
Following two months in the US in 1969 lecturing and directing at the Loyola University, Chicago, he spent periods during 1972–4 directing for the Missouri Repertory Theatre and lecturing and directing at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. He was impressed by American regional theatre, finding the actors more dedicated than in Ireland or Britain. On extended leave from the Abbey, he directed in various American theatres throughout 1975, the year he married Olwen O'Herlihy, daughter of the Irish actor Dan O'Herlihy (qv). After his request for six months leave each year was refused, he quit the Abbey in 1976, having done over a hundred major roles for the company.
In 1976 he became a US citizen and was appointed artistic director of the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival (GLSF), which staged Shakespeare and modern American classics in the Lakewood Civic Auditorium, Cleveland. His creative risk-taking, charisma and promotional skills raised the festival's reputation. He excelled at teaching and inspiring young talent and while directing in 1977 at Sacramento State University, California, recruited future Hollywood star, Tom Hanks, who graduated from stagehand to playing lead roles during three seasons with the GLSF. To save money and rehearsal time, Dowling staged a one-person show mid-season, starring in one such, 'My Lady Luck' (1980), based on the poetry and life of Robert Service. As Service was a favourite of US President Ronald Reagan, Dowling performed excerpts at the White House on three occasions between 1981 and 1984.
After the GLSF moved to the much bigger Ohio Theatre in downtown Cleveland, he drew upon his knowledge of US regional theatre to assemble a forty-six strong cast for the first US production of the eight-hour adaptation of 'The life and death of Nicholas Nickleby' (1982). Acclaimed nationally as a triumph of regional theatre, it was seen in Cleveland by 25,000 people, 11,000 more than attended the 1981 GLSF season, before enjoying a twelve-week run in Chicago. His decision to restage the show in 1983 backfired, however, leaving the GLSF in financial straits. He resigned in 1984. A difficult eighteen months as producing director of two musical theatres and a conservatory in Santa Maria, California, was followed by a happier period as visiting professor of the College of Wooster, Ohio.
In May 1987 he became artistic director of an underfunded Abbey Theatre haemorrhaging talent, audiences and money. Assured of creative freedom within the narrow limits of a budget carrying thirty tenured actors, some of who could be used only sparingly, he encouraged the move towards three-year contracts. There were some successes: he rejuvenated the Peacock through collaborations with fringe theatre groups, and oversaw tours of the Soviet Union, the USA and Hong Kong as well as Abbey shows in provincial Ireland. Conversely his policy of importing guest directors from America failed while the casting and choice of plays showed he had lost touch with Irish theatre.
After a difficult 1987 season, he survived 1988 by playing safe and directing bland, commercially successful productions of 'The shadow of a gunman' and 'The playboy of the western world'. His reversion to more challenging fare in spring 1989 produced two successive box office disasters, culminating with the board deposing him as artistic director in April. Agreeing to be the Abbey's promoter and fundraiser in America for the last year of his contract, he organised the Abbey's money-spinning, fifteen-city North American tour of 'The playboy of the western world' (1990), which he directed, tailoring it expertly for a middlebrow American audience.
Drawn by the local trout fishing, he retired to Chester, a small isolated village in western Massachusetts boasting a town hall capable of serving as a 144-seat theatre. In 1990 he founded the Miniature Theatre of Chester, which staged small-cast, professionally performed plays on a $30,000 budget, being artistic director for 1990–95. Continuing to act and direct sporadically, both in the Miniature Theatre and beyond, sometimes in self-composed plays, he founded a touring company in 2008 and last performed onstage in November 2012. His meandering, unreliable and vainglorious autobiography, Astride the moon (2000), covers his life to 1976, revealing a sharp contrast between his passion for theatre and clinical attitude towards personal relationships.
He died on 10 May 2013 in Massachusetts General Hospital due to complications arising from surgery. Following a funeral service at the First Congregational Church of Chester, his remains were interred in the nearby cemetery. He received honorary doctorates from Westfield State University in Massachusetts, and from Kent State University, John Carroll University and the College of Wooster, all in Ohio. His papers, dating from 1976 onwards, are archived in Kent State University. Two of his daughters, Bairbre and Rachael, acted in theatre, film and television. Bairbre married the Irish actor Colm Meaney. It emerged after his death that Dowling had fathered a child with Sinéad Cusack; their son Richard Boyd Barrett (b. 1967) was adopted as a baby, later becoming a left-wing dáil deputy.