Milo O'shea

[samkydd]

A popular pub music quiz question is "What film did the band Duran Duran get their name from?" and the answer is of course Barbarella.



Milo O'Shea played the character in the film, but when I looked it up on IMDB it lists the character's name as "Durand Durand".



Does anyone know what the correct name is please?



Also while Milo O'Shea's name has cropped up, he appeared in a UK sitcom in the 1970s with Yootha Joyce called something like "Me Mammy!". Does anyone remember it?

[Steve Crook]

Originally posted by samkydd@May 6 2005, 12:35 PM

A popular pub music quiz question is "What film did the band Duran Duran get their name from?" and the answer is of course Barbarella.



Milo O'Shea played the character in the film, but when I looked it up on IMDB it lists the character's name as "Durand Durand".



Does anyone know what the correct name is please?



Also while Milo O'Shea's name has cropped up, he appeared in a UK sitcom in the 1970s with Yootha Joyce called something like "Me Mammy!". Does anyone remember it?

Milo is called Dr. Durand-Durand in the film.

I can only assume that the band preferred the name without the final 'd'



Steve

[Marky B]

Is Milo O Shea still alive?

Ta Ta

Marky B

[plasticjock]

Originally posted by samkydd@May 6 2005, 11:35 AM

A popular pub music quiz question is "What film did the band Duran Duran get their name from?" and the answer is of course Barbarella.



Milo O'Shea played the character in the film, but when I looked it up on IMDB it lists the character's name as "Durand Durand".



Does anyone know what the correct name is please?



Also while Milo O'Shea's name has cropped up, he appeared in a UK sitcom in the 1970s with Yootha Joyce called something like "Me Mammy!". Does anyone remember it?

Yes, I remember it well. I haven't thought about it for years. It was the first time I'd come across Ray MacAnally and David Kelly...and Milo O'shea for that matter.

I remember the talking point at the time was that the actress playing Milo's mother was less than two years older than him. Yootha Joyce was quite glam then and Milo's character, Benny? Benjy? struggled between his lust for her and his catholic guilt piled on him by his mother and the jealousy of his cousin, Kelly.

Milo went to America and although I've seen him in some good film roles, he seems to have gone the way of Keith Michel, Roger Rees, Ian Ogilvy and other Brits and ended up doing guest roles in US tv programs like 'West Wing' (and very good he was, too).

[Steve Crook]

Originally posted by Marky B@May 6 2005, 01:53 PM

Is Milo O Shea still alive?

Ta Ta

Marky B

Well there's been no reports of his death that I've seen.

So that's a good sign.



He played Sgt. McGillikuddie in Puckoon (2002)



Steve

[Steve Crook]

Originally posted by Jonathan Woss@May 9 2005, 01:23 PM

Can I ask where you got your info Steve? I have listened carefully to the soundtrack of Barbarella and I can't here the final 'd' pronounced anywhere. I checked both front and end credits and the character name isn't mentioned. So is it natural to assume that both you and IMDb are privy to another source of information?

Maybe the final 'd' is silent, there are no pronunciation rules with real names.



I looked it up on the IMDb and Google. Google referred me to the many Duran Duran sites about the band all of which seem to refer to the character in the film as Dr. Durand-Durand.



He's also called Durand Durand on the BBC h2g2 site, wikipedia and many other fairly reputable places.



Steve

[smudge]

For reference, from The BBC Comedy Guide on the wb...



Me Mammy

UK, BBC, Sitcom, 7 x b/w · 14 x colour, 1968

Starring: Milo O'Shea, Anna Manahan, Yootha Joyce

The adventures of an Irishman, Bunjy Kennefick, a top executive with a London company. His jet-set bachelor lifestyle of fast cars and faster women makes him the envy of his friends - until, that is, they meet his ever-present mother. Her old-fashioned, traditional Irish morals, coupled with a devotion to her son's spiritual development, severely dent most of his more lecherous plans, especially where his regular girlfriend and secretary, the smouldering Miss Argyll, is concerned.



First seen as a Comedy Playhouse pilot, and created by Hugh Leonard (a good friend of the star Milo O'Shea), Me Mammy was a likeable slice of Irish whimsy that managed to incorporate true-life Irish incidents into the plots. The show had a gentle, mocking edge that took in most institutions and people, from the Roman Catholic church to traditional English misconceptions of the Irish. The series was a personal success for star O'Shea, who was actually a few years older than Anna Manahan, cast as his mother. O'Shea was enjoying a purple patch in his career at this time, following his remarkable performance as Bloom in the controversial film version of James Joyce's Ulysses. After the third series, Me Mammy was terminated by Leonard and O'Shea while it was still popular, both men agreeing that they had explored the subject sufficiently and that it was time to move on.





O'Shea later went to America, and a quarter of a century after this BBC series turned up in a 1995 episode of Frasier. He also appeared in the 1998 Amnesty International gala So You Think You're Irish.



Researched and written by Mark Lewisohn.



Cast

Milo O'Shea - Bunjy Kennefick

Anna Manahan - Mrs Kennefick

Yootha Joyce - Miss Argyll

Ray McAnally - Father Patrick

David Kelly - Cousin Enda





Crew

Hugh Leonard - Writer

James Gilbert - Producer (pilot

Sydney Lotterby - Producer (series 3)



Transmission Details

Number of episodes: 21 Length: 30 mins

Pilot (b/w) 14 June 1968 · BBC1 Fri 8.20pm

Series One (6 x b/w) 15 Sep-27 Oct 1969 · BBC1 Mon 10pm

Series Two (7 x colour) 7 Aug-18 Sep 1970 · BBC1 Fri 8.20pm

Series Three (7 x colour) 23 Apr-11 June 1971, BBC1 Fri 8pm



=========================================



Personally I'd love to see again that period piece of Irish/Jewish whimsy NEVER MIND THE QUALITY, FEEL THE WIDTH....



SMUDGE

[Mr Cosmo]

I never cared for NEVER MIND THE QUALITY as I felt the scripts were poor and relied on re-enforcing stereotypical Jewish and Catholic types - but ME MAMMY was fun, not just because Milo O'Shea played it perfectly, but it introduced many of us to Yootha Joyce and to David Kelly who has brightened up many a film and TV show. (Does anyone remember he took his mammy to see THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE because he had been told it was about a nun dying?)

Being raised in a Catholic environment with elderly relatives who used to throw open cupboards to reveal lots of statues - each capable of dealing with a different crisis in life - I found it very true to life.

Hugh Leonard I also remember wrote A SILENT SONG which was a Wednesday Play without dialogue, and another Wednesday Play possibly called THE RETREAT which was about a bunch of people who go for a day's silent meditation in I think Liverpool.

For some reason we don't seem to be allowed to laugh at religion anymore.



For your penance - you may all now say three hail marys....

[sippog]

Ah, yes, long before FATHER TED, there was ME MAMMY. Who can forget David Kelly's bizarre board games - like POPE-OPOLY where you drop through a trap-door into the pit of Hell when you lose a piece? Or the episode where O'Shea gets hold of a birth control pill and takes it himself?



Anna Manahan and O'Shea were also reunited for a wonderful hybrid spoof on Pygmalion and Synge: THE PLAYBOY OF THE EASTERN WORLD

[image45]

He is in two BBC 'Out of the Unknown' episodes, from season: 1 'Come Buttercup, Come Daisy, Come ...?' while from the third season he was in the colour episode 'Something in the Cellar' that is missing presumed wiped!