Niall MacGinnis which part was He offered?
Anybody got any ideas?
shareWhy do you think that he was offered any part in this?
He had worked a lot with Powell when they were both younger by by 1955/56 I think that he was focussing on being a doctor.
BTW there's no need to capitalise "He" as you do in the subject. That's only usually done for deities. Niall was good but I don't think that he would rate himself that high
Steve
You forget, Steve, that He did play Zeus in Jason and the Argonauts, so....
(Closest thing to a heavenly icon available!)
Yes, I never heard that Niall was offered anything in TBOTRP either. But I'm intrigued by your statement that he was focusing on being a doctor. Truly? I never heard that. He continued a busy film career for almost two more decades. Was he really a doctor in the midst of all that?
But combining both subjects, you know the old joke:
What's the difference between a doctor and God?
God doesn't think he's a doctor.
And, of course, they do capitalize "Doctor".
Niall did his doctoring training & studied medicine at Dublin University. He qualified as a house surgeon. During World War II, he served as surgeon in the Royal Navy.
The acting started out as a hobby but then he stopped doctoring and went to acting full time for a while, especially after the war. But then he gave up the greasepaint and went back to doctoring again.
When Powell made "Return to the Edge of the World" (1978) when he returned to the island of Foula with some of the cast & crew of The Edge of the World (1937, Niall couldn't join them because he was doctoring again. But in "Return to the Edge" Micky mentioned Niall
We also suspect that Niall was helpful when Micky & Emeric were doing their extensive medical research for A Matter of Life and Death. I don't have the details of that to hand but Diane Broadbent Friedman details it all in "A Matter of Life and Death: the Brain revealed by the Mind of Michael Powell"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1438909454/papas-20
Steve
Well, that's my question -- when did he pursue doctoring full-time? Looking over his c.v. he was steadily employed in movies from 1935 through 1943, then from 1947 onward until the early 70s. Obviously he had to have studied medicine and qualify as a doctor while performing, but he also clearly never gave up acting, as he had films released (sometimes 5 or 6) virtually every year for almost forty years, the war (or part of it) aside. If he was engaged in both professions then it had to be simultaneously, taking time off from medicine to do films.
I also don't understand your statement that Niall didn't go with Powell to Foula for Return to the Edge of the World because he was "doctoring again". MacGinnis died on January 6, 1977, after suffering from cancer. I don't know when Powell actually went to Foula to make the film (which runs, what, 25 minutes, so it was hardly a lengthy "shoot"), but it seems questionable that he went so long before the film's release in 1978 that MacGinnis didn't join them solely because he was doctoring -- vs. being terminally ill, or even dead by that point.
It is true that he made few appearances in the 70s -- presumably because he was by then primarily devoting himself to being a doctor. His last two credits (both for TV) were in 1976 and, posthumously, in 1978 (his last film in 1973). But I wonder at the timing of Powell's trip to Foula and the real reason for MacGinnis's absence. I always assumed it was because he had died, or was at least dying. From the look of the light and weather at the time of filming, it appears that Return was shot in the spring or summer, which means it would have to have been filmed no later than 1976 for MacGinnis to even consider being part of it. Yet if he refused because he was busy being a physician, why did he take time to act in two television movies, one not broadcast until over a year after his death? (Perhaps he just didn't want to leave London?)
That's the trouble with responding to questions here when:
a) I'm at work and half way through sorting out 20 other things
b) It's about a documentary that I haven't actually watched for some time
Steve
Sorry, Steve. You didn't need to reply any time soon. Do it when it suits.
But I just see no occasion in his lifetime when NM gave up acting for any period in order to pursue medicine exclusively, save perhaps in his last few years. He was simply too steadily employed in films. That and the matter of when Return to the Edge of the World was filmed, and the relation of this to MacGinnis's circumstances at the time.