Biography

Hugh Leonard was born on November 9, 1926 in Dublin, Ireland. He was a writer and actor, known for Da (1988), Late Night Horror (1968) and Widows' Peak (1994). He was married to Kathy Bateson and Paule Jacquet. He died on February 12, 2009 in Dalkey, County Dublin, Ireland.

Won Broadway's 1978 Tony Award as author of Best Play winner "Da." He was also twice nominated as author of a Best Play nominee: in 1974 for "The Au Pair Man" and in 1981 for "A Life."

He started using his pen name in the 1950s. At that time he worked in the civil service, and he wanted to hide his identity as an outspoken writer.

Opposed political violence and was a critic of the IRA.

Irish dramatist and occasional film and television writer. His plays regularly performed at important Dublin theatres. He also adapted classic novels for television as well as contributing original material for comedies and thrillers.

Ireland is my subject matter, but only to the degree in which I can use it as a microcosm; this involves choosing themes which are free of Catholicism and politics, both of which I detest and which deprive one's work of applicability outside Ireland.

Being an Irish writer both hampers and helps me. Hampers, because one is fighting the preconceptions of audiences who have been conditioned to expect feyness and parochial subject matter; helps, because the writer can utilise a vigorous and poetic idiom which enables him to combine subtlety with richness.