Hugh Leonard

The annual IFTAs last weekend coincided with the funeral of Hugh Leonard, prompting Jim Sheridan to regret that it was now too late to give him a lifetime achievement award. Probably no other Irish writer created as many roles for actors in such a wide range of forms, not just plays but television and radio comedies, drama series and screen adaptations. Like John Ford, he had no time for artistic airs. He claimed Laurel & Hardy as his inspiration and regarded even the text of his Tony Award-winning play Da still as a work in progress rather than holy writ. When The Abbey revived it in 2002, he kept emailing Patrick Mason fresh lines. "It's not written in stone," he said. During the dark days of film censorship, he gave me public support when others were silent, leading to a life-long friendship. Over a paella – one of his favourite dishes, as long it was cooked by Julia – he allowed me lure him to the Sunday Independent to write a weekly log that was to become legendary, and an outlet for many of his most telling one-liners. Like many great writers, he had a public and private self, differentiated by his assumed name and his true name, Jack. He was easily hurt and never got over fear of rejection, having been given away when he was 10 days old without ever knowing his father. "I used to pretend Denis Johnston was my father, because he was a maverick," he told me. "I felt in a sense I was a bit like him. If he'd ever found out, he'd have been horrified." He dissected the affectations of the new rich but had no envy and could even remark, on learning that he had been swindled out of £250,000, how lucky he was to have been able to afford not to notice. Like Groucho Marx he didn't belong to any club that would have him – and that included Aosdána – preferring instead the companionship of his own Dalkey local, The Club. He found happiness with his daughter Danielle, his cats and his friends, and was never without hope – even trying to plan one last defiant visit to France, despite the battering his body received through a long illness. I remember him best steering his barge along the canals of the Loire valley, pulling in wherever he got the sniff of a good restaurant. One evening a group of singers from a local choir began singing divinely after their meal and Jack was so moved he broke into tears. We ended the night in laughter going through the alphabet over and over again with each person having to come up with a movie title beginning with the next letter. Au revoir, Jack.