I have Parkinson’s but it won’t stop me working, says Frank
Veteran Father Ted actor now believes he has had a form of the disease ‘for 20 years’
FATHER Ted star Frank Kelly has revealed he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
The actor who played Fr Jack in the hit TV series says that he believes he has had the disease for more than 20 years.
It was his daughter who first noticed a tremor in his hand over two decades ago, it was reported.
‘I was shaving with my left hand with my right hand down by my side, which my daughter Fiona noticed was shaking. ‘That was a very long time ago. ‘No one ever noticed that little shake in my hand, I just got on with it.’
The Dubliner was hospitalised
‘I felt miserable and unwell’
earlier this year for heart failure.
But he found himself back at the doctor’s just a few weeks later, feeling ‘miserable and generally unwell’.
Mr Kelly, speaking to the Irish Sun, said: ‘That’s when they diagnosed the Parkinson’s.
‘It was my first diagnosis but I’m quietly confident that I have had this for years and years.’
The Hall’s Pictorial Weekly and Wanderly Wagon star has spent the last number of years battling with various illnesses.
In 2011 he was given the all-clear from bowel cancer after a five-year battle. This year, he had some small skin cancers removed before experiencing heart problems.
Parkinson’s disease affects the nervous system. Symptoms include a tremor or shake in a hand, arm or leg, stiff or aching muscles, slow movement and difficulty talking, waking or balancing.
Kelly is determined, however, that it won’t hold him back. ‘I’ve been working as an actor for over 50 years, and a shaky hand certainly won’t stop me.’
He added: ‘It did get gradually worse for a while then lessened.
‘But if you’re watching what you are doing, you can control it. It doesn’t interfere with your work, it doesn’t interfere with anything.
‘You might have heard of the American actor Michael J. Fox, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 22 years ago and is still working today. ‘I’m the same’. Kelly is currently kept busy with his upcoming memoir, The Next Gig. He is dedicating the book to his wife Bairbre, mother of his seven children. Writing it came easily to Kelly who was once a sub-editor with the Irish Press.
The Dubliner couldn’t resist the l ure of the stage and screen however and left the newsroom to pursue success as an actor in Ireland and the UK.
Kelly found his greatest fame as the alcohol swilling, womanising priest, Fr Jack Hackett.
For a period after hit comedy Father Ted first aired, Kelly couldn’t walk the streets of Dublin without having his character’s catchphrase of ‘Drink! Feck! Girls!’ shouted at him by adoring fans.
‘The Ted fans do it less now because I think over the years their relationship with Jack has mellowed,’ he said. ‘I want to stress I love Father Ted, and as an actor you need to utilise all your work for more exposure or you disappear from view.’
Kelly, 76, said that his phone is always on, ready for the next job offer. ‘An artist never really retires. ‘If you don’t work, you eventually just run out of money.’
‘A shaky hand won’t stop me’