FROM WAITER TO WRITER

Niky Rossiter tells the story of Inchicore’s Gabriel Walsh who went from serving the stars to writing for the silver screen

THE TITLE ‘From Waiter to Writer’ needs only to change one letter to become a reality but for Gabriel Walsh it was quite a journey and in some ways was almost an Irish fairytale.

Walsh was born in Inchicore, in Dublin, the fifth of eleven children, in the 1940s. As such, life did not seem to have much to offer in the Ireland of the day when education was meagre and the country’s economy was not exactly booming.

As luck would have it, Gabriel seems to have been quite a confident young lad and one day as he passed The Shelbourne Hotel he was captured by the smell of roasting chicken escaping the ventilation grill, not that he would have recognised it as chicken.

With what one imagines was some bravado he approached the hall porter and asked about how one might go about getting a job in such a place. He was directed to the assistant manager.

He must have made a very good impression on this man because he decided to hire him on the spot as a commis waiter. But there was a problem in that in those days the waiters were required to provide their own uniforms.

Walsh did not have the means to do so but the manager helped him borrow the required garment from other waiters.

In his first weeks in the hotel, he was serving breakfasts on the early shift and in this capacity he met Indira Gandhi, Montgomery Clift and John Huston.

On another occasion he was delivering a breakfast tray to a room when the maid told him that those in nearby rooms were complaining about the occupant he was delivering to playing his guitar all night.

It turned out to be Andre Segovia.

ANOTHER PERSON from the music world that he encountered was Dame Margaret Burke Sheridan. She was a regular guest at the hotel but because of her stringent standards many staff members were reluctant to serve her.

As the latest addition to staff, Gabriel was chosen to bring breakfast to her room. On knocking and getting no answer he timidly used his pass key to enter the room.

He found Miss Sheridan on the floor and served her breakfast there possibly thinking her somewhat eccentric. As it turned out she was looking for a lipstick she had dropped and found the incident rather funny and instead of a rage there developed a lifelong friendship.

From then on he served all her meals and they had long talks, probably much to the relief of the other staff.

Some weeks later he was outside Bewley’s in Grafton Street when he noticed Miss Sheridan and her friend, Mrs Axe, behind him. As he was out of uniform and dressed in clothes purchased second-hand at the Iveagh Market, he was mortified.

He was introduced to Mrs Axe who was a wealthy New York lady and nothing would do the ladies but to propel him to the nearest men’s outfitters and clothe him from head to toe. This proved to be a major turning point in his life.

MRS AXE and her husband approached Walsh’s mother and asked to be not only his guardians but also to take him to America.

His mother agreed and he found himself living in a castle in America and going back to school.

This was planned as a lead in to a life in high finance on Wall Street, but again fate took a hand.

In a New York bar he met a young actor on his way to an audition and he decided to tag along and maybe try his luck. It ended up with both of them getting parts in Troilus and Cressida and both got good reviews.

His actor friend was Robert Redford.

After some acting roles Gabriel again changed tack and tried his hand as a screenwriter.

This career would see Gabriel Walsh back in The Shelbourne Hotel but this time as a guest rather than a waiter.

He was back in his native city for the filming of his screenplay for Quackser Fortune has a Cousin in the Bronx.

The film starring Gene Wilder and Margot Kidder was about a manure peddler whose livelihood was losing out to the advent of the motor lorries that displaced the dray horses.

It was nominated by The Writers Guild of America as the best American screen comedy of the year.

As well as his screenplays Gabriel Burke has written two volumes of autobiography, Maggie’s Breakfast and I Dream Alone. ■