J. M. Kerrigan

Joseph Michael Kerrigan was born on 16 December 1884 in Dublin, Ireland, then part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. He was educated at Belvedere College and worked as a newspaperman before turning to the stage. He died in Hollywood on 29 April 1964, at the age of 79.

Kerrigan began his theatrical career in 1907 when he joined the Irish National Theatre, the company that would become known as the Abbey Players. He performed in works by Lady Gregory, William Butler Yeats, and John Millington Synge, and originated the role of Shawn Keogh in Synge's The Playboy of the Western World. He traveled with the Abbey company on its tours to New York City in 1908 and again in 1911, the latter visit notable for the riotous audience response to the American premiere of The Playboy of the Western World. His Broadway career, which spanned from 1908 to 1946, encompassed 35 productions in total, including The Lost Leader, A Young Man's Fancy, White Wings, Out There, and The Rivalry, as well as frequent appearances in plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Sheridan.

In 1924, Kerrigan appeared in Sutton Vane's Outward Bound alongside fellow Abbey alumnus Dudley Digges, Alfred Lunt, Leslie Howard, Margalo Gillmore, and Beryl Mercer. His final Broadway seasons came in 1946, first in Barnaby and Mr. O'Malley, based on the Crockett Johnson comic strip, in which he played the leprechaun Jackeen J. O'Malley; the production closed after four performances. Later that same year he appeared in Guthrie McClintic's revival of The Playboy of the Western World, this time in the role of Michael James Flaherty.

Kerrigan made his screen debut in Food of Love in 1916, one of six silent films he completed that year. He settled permanently in Hollywood in 1935 after being recruited, along with other Abbey performers, to appear in John Ford's The Informer. He also appeared in Ford's The Long Voyage Home, playing in both films a character who attaches himself to men until their money runs out. In The General Died at Dawn he played a sinister thief named Leach. He had a minor role as the First Drayman in Merely Mary Ann (1931) with Janet Gaynor, and portrayed John Gallegher, a mill owner who uses violence to control convict labor, in Gone with the Wind (1939). He appeared in Walt Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), an adaptation of Jules Verne's 1870 novel, in a small role early in the film. Across his screen career he accumulated credits in 114 short and feature-length motion pictures, and between 1952 and 1960 he appeared in episodes of 15 different television series. Kerrigan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6621 Hollywood Boulevard.