Arthur Shields

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arthur Shields (February 15, 1896 -April 27, 1970) was an Irish-born stage and film actor.

Born in Dublin, Ireland, the younger brother of Irish actor Barry Fitzgerald, Arthur Shields joined Fitzgerald at Dublin's famed Abbey Theatre as a Player in 1914, where he directed as well as acted. Though in films fitfully since 1910, Shields's formal movie career did not begin until he joined several other Abbey veterans in the cast of John Ford's The Plough and the Stars (1936). He went on to appear in several other John Ford films, generally cast in more introverted roles than those offered his brother. Unlike his sibling, Shields was not confined to Irish parts; he often as not played Americans, and in 1943's Dr. Renault's Secret he was seen as a French police inspector.

Never as prominent a film personality as his brother, Arthur Shields nonetheless remained a dependable second-echelon character player into the 1960s. Some of his memorable roles were as the Reverend Playfair in Ford's The Quiet Man opposite John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara and his brother, Barry Fitzgerald and again with his brother and John Wayne in John Ford's Long Voyage Home. He appeared as Fogarty in Little Nellie Kelly opposite Judy Garland and George Murphy. Other films in which he had a supporting role include The Fabulous Dorseys, The Fighting Father Dunne, Drums Along the Mohawk with Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert, Lady Godiva with Maureen O'Hara and National Velvet with Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney. He also played a memorable supporting role, as a widower living in India, in Jean Renoir's The River. He died in Santa Barbara, California.