Brefni O'Rorke


Brefni O'Rorke was an Irish film actor. He began studying acting with his mother, the actress Jane O'Rorke née Morgan who was born in 1858, and there was a brother, Frederic, twelve years old than him. He made his professional début in 1912 at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin in a production of Shaw's John Bull's Other Island. While still living in Dublin, he met and married in 1916 Alice Cole, a chorus-girl turned actress, who had divorced her first husband and immigrated from South Africa with her young son. Thus O'Rorke became the stepfather of Cyril Cusack.
In 1939 he appeared in several broadcasts in the new fledgling BBC television broadcast, including a play by Irish playwright Teresa Deevy called The King of Spain's Daughter, and produced by Denis Johnston.

Partial filmography

posthumous complete:
National Television started in October 1936, initially broadcast just two hours a day. National Television stopped broadcast at the start of the War, and didn't restart until 1946.
"Plays" could last just one hour maximum, but some were only 25 minutes long. Also, there was no recording possible, so any repeat was really a new broadcast.

Dramas




Others