13 Facts About Vincent Dowling

Vincent Gerard Dowling was an Irish actor and director.

Vincent Dowling received four honorary Doctorate of Letters from John Carroll University, Kent State University, Westfield State University, and the College of Wooster, for contributions to Irish and American drama.

Vincent Dowling was an early career mentor to Academy Award winning actor, Tom Hanks.

Vincent Dowling was born in Dublin and educated at St Mary's College, Dublin and Rathmines College of Commerce.

Vincent Dowling came to prominence in the 1950s for his role as Christy Kennedy in the long-running radio soap opera, The Kennedys of Castleross and as a member of the Abbey Theatre company.

Vincent Dowling returned to the Abbey as artistic director from 1987 to 1990.

Vincent Dowling emigrated to the United States in the 1970s, and served as artistic director of the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Cleveland, Ohio from 1976 to 1984, where he directed, produced and acted in many classical works, by Shakespeare and others.

Vincent Dowling received an Ohio Valley local Emmy for the 1983 PBS broadcast of his 1982 GLSF production of The Playboy of the Western World.

Vincent Dowling founded the Miniature Theatre of Chester, in Chester, Massachusetts, in 1990.

Vincent Dowling married actress Brenda Doyle in 1952; they had four daughters, including actress Bairbre Vincent Dowling, before divorcing in 1975.

In 1975, Vincent Dowling married Olwen O'Herlihy, with whom he had a son.

Politician Richard Boyd Barrett is the biological son of Vincent Dowling and recording artist and actress Sinead Cusack from a 1966 relationship while both were at the Abbey Theatre; Boyd Barrett was adopted as an infant.

Vincent Dowling contacted Boyd Barrett after his connection with Cusack was publicly revealed in 2007.