Film star Desmond hits the headlines again!
ONE of Drogheda’s best known actors has become a star again!
Desmond Cunningham from Lourdes Square celebrated his 100th birthday in Dublin recently.
Desmond appeared in hundreds of films, having moved to the USA as a young man.
He joined the American army during WWII - and saw action against the Japanese in New
Guinea - and later went to work in the American embassy in London.
He did a season with Struan Robertson’s company in Dundalk and one of his most heralded appearances was in 1953 when he featured in the first An Tostal pagent held at the Athletic Grounds in Drogheda, organised by Frank Boyle, Civil Defence
Officer. It portrayed scenes from Ireland’s stirring history from 1690.
Desmond delivered a perfect and rousing rendition of Robert Emmet’s speech from the dock.
The same year he was selected by Actors Equity as an extra for the MGM picture ‘Knights of the Round Table’ and it played in the Gate Cinema in 1955. A year later he featured in “The Lark,” a play dealing with Joan of Arc.
His films, “The Angry Silence” and “Circle of Deception” were also screened at the Gate Cinema. He also had a part in “The Guns of Navarone” and in the film “Cleopatra,” he played opposite Peter Finch and led 500 men of the Roman army onto the shores of Alexandria.
In 1960, he was in ‘Wreck of the Mary Deane’ with Gary Cooper, Virginia MoKenna and Irish actor, Richard Harris. He also featured in ‘ The Trials of Oscar Wilde.’
His very proud mother, Mrs. Kathleen Nugent Cunningham, spent many years in the U.S. and was known as a singer and pianist on some of the radio networks before the war.
The Cunninghams were very talented and in the early 60s, her grandson, Bobby Harnish, Philadelphia., played the saxaphone lead with The Agna String Band, Philadelphia and starred at the reception and premiere of the film “Around the World in Eighty Days” in Madison Square Garden, New York. His mother, formerly Joan Cunningham, was born at 103 West St., Drogheda.