Biography
Blustery, bushy-eyebrowed Irish character-actor Milo O'Shea was on stage from the age of 10, at which time he became a protégé of Sir John Gielgud. At 19, O'Shea joined Dublin's Abbey Players, where he remained for well over two decades. He made his Broadway debut in 1968's Staircase, and later starred as the gladhanding priest in the original stage production of Bill C. Davis' Mass Appeal (a role played in the 1984 movie version by
Jack Lemmon). In films from 1951, O'Shea was cast as Leopold Bloom in
Ulysses (1967), Mister Zero in
The Adding Machine (1969), Durand-Durand in
Barbarella (1968), and scene-stealing Judge Hoyle in
The Verdict (1981). His TV roles include Dr. Stanislaus Lotaki on the pioneering miniseries
QB VII (1973) and eccentric cartoonist Abner Bevis in the short-lived superhero satire
Once a Hero (1987). Though only in his seventh decade, Milo O'Shea seems to have been around forever, eliciting gasps of "Hooray! He's still working!" from delighted fans whenever O'Shea pops up on such 1990s TV series as
Frasier. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide