MY WEEKEND:
Malachy McCourt
You wouldn’t guess it from the lilt in his voice, but Malachy McCourt — actor, writer, gubernatorial candidate — was born in Brooklyn. He and his late brother, Frank, author of “Angela’s Ashes,” spent their formative years in Ireland before returning to America, where Malachy has lived the past 53 years. On Sept. 12, the Upper West Sider returns to Brooklyn to sign copies of his new book (with Brian McDonald), “Death Need Not Be Fatal,” at Green-Wood Cemetery. Now 85, the raconteur tells BARBARA HOFFMAN about his favorite weekend haunts, then and now.
Before I was married, I started the first singles bar in New York. It was called Malachy’s and it was on Third Avenue, where all the bars were Irish — neon lights and shamrocks and all that rubbish. There was a tradition where they wouldn’t let women sit at the bar; women who did were suspect. I thought that was stupid. The Barbizon Hotel for Women was right around the corner, so when the young women there started to come in, I said, “Sit wherever you like!” So that’s how it happened. Beautiful people like Grace Kelly, who stayed at the Barbizon, would pop in, and then actors ... Peter O’Toole, when he was in town, Alan Bates, Richard Burton, Gig Young and Jonathan Winters.
I used to go to the Lion’s Head in the Village. Pete Hamill hung out there, and Jimmy Breslin came in once in a while. Mario Cuomo said that I said that the Jews went to the Lion’s Head to drink like the Irish, and the Irish went there to think like the Jews. I don’t know if I did, but he said so. All the guys who came there had the covers of their books on the wall. My brother Frank said he wanted his there, too — and “Angela’s Ashes” was the last cover that went up there. And then the Lion’s Head closed.
I don’t go to bars now. There’s a very nice Turkish restaurant on 100th Street my wife and I go to, Turkuaz. The food’s eclectic and the decibel level is quite civilized — you can chat without bellowing.
Sometimes we’ll go down to Riverside Park around 86th Street. We stroll up and down, watching people with their children. We give New Jersey the occasional glance, to acknowledge it’s there. I was once a concrete inspector on the NJ Turnpike, working on the extension of the Holland Tunnel — so take alternate routes.
We [Irish] mourn marriage and celebrate death: “Tommy, he’s gone, we won’t see him again. He got married on Saturday.” That’s how we look at it.