Джеймс О’Нилл: Жизнь и судьба ирландско-американского актера.

American actor (1847–1920)

James O'Neill (November 15, 1847 – August 10, 1920) was an Irish American theatre actor. He was the father of American playwright Eugene O'Neill and the inspiration for one of the primary characters in his son's play Long Day's Journey into Night.

James O'Neill was born on November 15, 1847, in County Kilkenny, Ireland. His parents were distant cousins, Edward and Mary O'Neill. His father was a farmer. The family emigrated to America in 1851 and settled in Buffalo, New York. In 1857 they moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where James was apprenticed to a machinist.

At the age of 21, he made his stage debut in a Cincinnati, Ohio, production of Boucicault's The Colleen Bawn (1867). Also in 1867, Edwin Forrest embarked on a "farewell tour". O'Neill had a minor part in Forrest's Cincinnati production of Virginius, and then joined a travelling repertory company. He played a young sailor in Joseph Jefferson's Rip Van Winkle and for the first time found his brogue a handicap. Casting O'Neill, who was called Black Irish because of his black hair, has been marked as one possible origin of disputes about whether the character Othello was meant to merely to have black hair and dark features, rather than to be of sub Saharan African origin. While in San Francisco, O'Neill became friends with fellow actor, John Elitch. When Elitch opened the Elitch Zoological Gardens in Denver, Colorado, on May 1, 1890, O'Neill attended the opening and promised "I'll come back and play on that stage whenever you say." On May 30, 1897, O'Neill kept his promise and appeared in the opening play, Helene, by Martha Morton. He was considered a promising actor, quickly working his way up the ranks to become a matinee idol.

In the middle of 1920 James was struck by an automobile in New York City and taken to Lawrence Memorial Hospital in New London, Connecticut. He died, aged 72, on August 11, 1920, from intestinal cancer, at the family summer home, the Monte Cristo Cottage in Connecticut. His funeral at St. Joseph's Church was attended by, among others, O'Neill's sister, Mrs. M. Platt of St. Louis and Edward D. White, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. O'Neill was buried in St. Mary's cemetery.

James O'Neill later became the model for James Tyrone, the frugal, mercurial, unseeing father character in Eugene O'Neill's posthumously published autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night, which tells the story of the Tyrone family, which closely resembles the O'Neill family.