O’Shea as the mad scientist Dr Durand Durand in Barbarella, a 41st-century sex-romp made in1968: this was the character who inspired the name of Nick Rhodes’s pop group Duran Duran. Here the Doctor is seen at the keyboard of his orgasmatron which he called the Excessive Machine, trying to destroy Jane Fonda with simulated waves of lust. © Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica
O’Shea as Leopold Bloom: with Barbara Jefford as Molly Bloom in Joseph Strick’s Ulysses (1967). Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
“ For a performer of such fame and versatility, the distinguished Irish character actor Milo O’Shea, who has died aged 86, is not associated with any role in particular, or indeed any clutch of them. He was chiefly associated with his own expressive dark eyes, bushy eyebrows, outstanding mimetic talents and distinctive Dublin brogue.
“ His impish presence irradiated countless fine movies – including Joseph Strick’s Ulysses (1967), Roger Vadim’s Barbarella (1968) and Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict (1982) – and many top-drawer American television series, from Cheers, The Golden Girls and Frasier, right through to The West Wing (2003-04), in which he played the chief justice Roy Ashland… ” / Continued at Guardian online
O’Shea as chief justice Ashland in The West Wing 2003-04. © NBCU Photo Bank
O’Shea as Friar Laurence in Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, 1968: with Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey
➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣ 