22 Facts About Cyril Cusack

Cyril James Cusack was an Irish stage and screen actor with a career that spanned more than 70 years.

In 2020, Cusack was ranked at number 14 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.

Cyril Cusack co-starred opposite Richard Burton several times, who once commended Cusack's acting as "always himself and yet always totally different".

Fluent in both English and Irish, Cyril Cusack had a starring role in the first Irish-language feature film, Poitin.

Cyril Cusack was the patriarch of the Irish Cusack acting family, as the father of Sinead Cusack, Sorcha Cusack, Niamh Cusack, Padraig Cusack, and Catherine Cusack.

Cyril Cusack's mother, Alice Violet, was an English Cockney actress and chorus girl, and his father, James Walter Cusack, was an Irish mounted policeman in Natal Colony, South Africa.

Cyril Cusack's parents separated when he was young and his mother took him to England, and then to Ireland.

Cyril Cusack made his first stage performance at the age of seven.

Cyril Cusack was educated at Newbridge College in Newbridge, County Kildare, then read law at University College Dublin.

Cyril Cusack left without a degree and joined the Abbey Theatre in 1932.

Cyril Cusack performed in plays by Irish playwright Teresa Deevy Katie Roche and The King of Spain's Daughter.

In 1963, Cyril Cusack joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in London and appeared there for several seasons.

Cyril Cusack made his film debut in Knocknagow, when he was only 8.

Cyril Cusack played the titular role in the Galileo, which was the directorial debut of Italian filmmaker Liliana Cavani.

Cyril Cusack returned to Italy several times throughout his career, particularly in the 1970s, both acting on-camera and working as a voice artist, helping create English-language dubs of Italian films.

Cyril Cusack, who was bilingual in English and Irish, had a leading part in the controversial Irish language film Poitin.

Cyril Cusack was a strong supporter of Irish nationalism, and often selected projects based on those beliefs.

In later life, Cyril Cusack became a campaigner for conservative causes in Ireland, notably in his opposition to abortion, where he became a frequent letter-writer to the main liberal Irish newspaper, The Irish Times.

Cyril Cusack received honorary doctorate in 1977 from the NUI and 1980, from the University of Dublin.

Cyril Cusack was a longtime friend of Irish attorney general, Chief Justice and President of Ireland Cearbhall O Dalaigh, whom he got to know when they were students at University College Dublin in the early 1930s.

Cyril Cusack is the maternal grandfather of Irish Socialist Workers Party TD Richard Boyd Barrett and English actor Max Irons.

In October 1993, Cyril Cusack died at home in Chiswick, Greater London, from MND.