Life
1903-1985; actress and film producer; b. [?]Dublin; ed. Alexandra College,
and a convent school in Paris; joined Drama League, and later Abbey Theatre Company,
1924 [var. 1925]; created parts of Nora in O’Casey’s The
Plough and the Stars (to be replaced by Eileen Crowe in London), and
Kate in Robinson’s The Big House; also Blanáid in Denis
Johnston’s The Moon in the Yellow River; m. Johnston, 1928,
with whom Jennifer and Michael Johnston; played with Gladys Cooper in
New York, 1938; establish independent company for new plays at the Olympia
Theatre, with Nigel Heseltine, during World War II [‘the Emergency’];
living at Greenfield Manor in 1937; divorced from Johnston, 1945; drama
producer for RTÉ, 1962; numerous film productions incl. plays of
retired to Ballybrack, Co. Dublin; d. 19 Jan.; memorial service held in
St. Anne's Church included moving rendering of song from O’Casey,
“When I love only you, Nora ...”. DIB BREF
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Notes
Helena Sheehan, Irish Television Drama, A Society and Its Stories
(RTE 1987), cites RTE films directed by Shelah Richards [here given as
Sheelah], between 1962-75, including versions of works by Eugene MacCabe
(A Matter of Conscience, 1962), Sean O’Casey (Moon Shines
on Kylenamoe, 1962), Denis Johnston (Moon in the Yellow River,
1964), Lennox Robinson (Whiteheaded Boy, 1965; Church Street,
1965; Far Off Hills, 1966), G. B. Shaw (Man of Destiny,
1964), James Douglas (All the Eels in the Ranny are Dead, 1968),
J. M. Synge (Riders to the Sea 1971), Hugh Leonard (Fine Girl
You Are, Chekov [The Darling], 1973), John Boyd (The Flats,
1975), and Edna O’Brien (Cheap Bunch of Nice Flowers, 1975).
Portrait of Sheila [err.] Richards, with Yeats et al., in Shirley
Neuman, Some One Myth: Yeats’s Autobiographical Prose [New
Yeats Papers XIX] (Dolmen Press 1982), p.43; also studio photo-portrait
in de Breffni, Ireland, A Cultural Encyclopaedia (1983), p.203.
... by any other name: Shelah/Shelagh/Sheelah: ‘Shelagh’ is the spelling used by Denis Johnston in interview with Des Hickey & Gus Martin, A Paler Shade of Green, 1972, p.62f. Shelah is the spelling in Bernard Adams, Denis Johnston: A Life (2002), presumably vetted by Michael Johnston - but note that her name is once spelt Sheila in error (p.157.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)