Vincent Gerard Dowling is an Emmy Award

Emmy Award

An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

winning Irish actor and director.

He was formerly married to the late Irish actress, Brenda Doyle (who died in a car crash in 1981). He is the father of actress Bairbre Dowling

Bairbre Dowling

Bairbre Dowling is an Irish actress.Born in Dublin as Barbara Patricia Dowling, she was formerly married to Irish actor Colm Meaney, and is the daughter of Irish-American actor Vincent Dowling, and the late Irish actress, Brenda Doyle She has appeared in relatively few TV shows and movies, the...

, and the former father-in-law of Irish actor, Colm Meaney

Colm Meaney

Colm J. Meaney is an Irish actor widely known for playing Miles O'Brien in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He is second only to Michael Dorn in most appearances in Star Trek episodes. He has guest-starred on many TV shows from Law & Order to The Simpsons...

.

Dowling first came to prominence in Ireland in the 1950s for his role as Christy Kennedy in the long-running radio soap opera, The Kennedys of Castleross

The Kennedys of Castleross

The Kennedys of Castleross was an Irish serial drama or soap opera which was broadcast on Radio Éireann from 1955 to 1973.The serial was devised by Arks advertising agency on behalf of its client, Fry-Cadbury and the first script writers were Mark Grantham and Bill Nugent. The first episode was...

and as a member of the Abbey Theatre

Abbey Theatre

The Abbey Theatre , also known as the National Theatre of Ireland , is a theatre located in Dublin, Ireland. The Abbey first opened its doors to the public on 27 December 1904. Despite losing its original building to a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the present day...

 company. He served as Artistic and Producing Director of The Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival (now the Great Lakes Theater Festival

Great Lakes Theater Festival

Great Lakes Theater Festival is Cleveland, Ohio's professional classic theater company. Founded in 1962, the Festival is the second-largest regional theater in Northeast Ohio. It specializes in large-cast classic plays with a strong foundation in the works of Shakespeare and features an...

) in Cleveland, Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

 from 1976 to 1984. During his tenure at GLSF, he directed, produced and acted in many classical works, by Shakespeare and others. He is credited with discovering award-winning actor Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks

Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...

.

Dowling founded the Miniature Theatre of Chester (now the Chester Theatre Company), in Chester, Massachusetts

Chester, Massachusetts

Chester is a town in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, situated in the western part of the state. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts metropolitan statistical area. The town includes the Chester Factory Village Historic District. The total population was 1,337 in the 2010...

, in 1990.

Dowling received an Emmy for producing and directing the PBS film The Playboy of the Western World, based on John Millington Synge

John Millington Synge

Edmund John Millington Synge was an Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore. He was a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival and was one of the cofounders of the Abbey Theatre...

's 1907 play of the same name

The Playboy of the Western World

The Playboy of the Western World is a three-act play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge and first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on January 26, 1907. It is set in Michael James Flaherty's public house in County Mayo during the early 1900s...

.

Dowling's first autobiographical book is Astride the Moon: A Theatrical Life, ISBN 0863278280 (Wolfhound Press, 2000).

He currently resides in Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 with his second wife, Olwen Patricia O'Herlihy.

Dowling's papers, from 1976 onward, are housed at the Kent State University

Kent State University

Kent State University is a public research university located in Kent, Ohio, United States. The university has eight campuses around the northeast Ohio region with the main campus in Kent being the largest...

 and John Carroll University

John Carroll University

John Carroll University is a private, co-educational Jesuit Catholic university in University Heights, Ohio, United States, a suburb of Cleveland. The university was founded in 1886 by the Society of Jesus as Saint Ignatius College.The university was founded in 1886 by the Society of Jesus, as...

libraries.

External links

• Dowling Papers at Kent State University