Michéal MacLiammóir Hilton Edwards Shelah Richards Jennifer Johnston

WILLIAM DENIS JOHNSTON
(1901 - 1984) playwright
Born 18^th Jan 1901, Dublin

Son of William Johnston, later a judge of the Supreme Court, and educated at St Andrew's, Dublin, Merchiston School, Edinburgh, and Cambridge University, where he studied law. He was called to the bar in Dublin, Belfast and London and practised for ten years. When his first play, Shadowdance, was rejected by the Abbey Theatre with the words 'The Old Lady says No' written on the title page, he retitled it The Old Lady Says 'No' and it was successfully produced at the Gate in 1928 by Mac Liammóir and Edwards. The Moon in the Yellow River was produced at the Abbey in 1931 to a mixed reception.

In the mid-thirties he joined the BBC in Belfast as a script-writer and in 1936 became a drama producer in London for the new BBC television service. During the Second World War he was a war correspondent for BBC radio in north Africa, Italy, the Balkans and Germany and received the OBE for his services. Nine Rivers to Jordan (1953) is an account of his wartime experiences. In 1950 he embarked on a new career as professor in American universities, teaching at Mount Holyoke, Amherst and Smith and later becoming visiting professor in California and New York. Distinctions included a Guggenheim fellowship (1955), Allied Irish Banks award for literature (1977), and an honorary doctorate from NUU (1979).

In all, he had nine plays produced, five at the Gate and four at the Abbey. They owed nothing to any school, and their originality in conception and outlook baffled many audiences. In Search of Swift (1959) and The Brazen Head (1977), an autobiography, are equally Johnstonian. He died in Ballybrack, Co. Dublin, on 8 August 1984, survived by his first wife, Shelah Richards, three sons, and a daughter, the novelist Jennifer Johnston. His second wife, Betty Chancellor, had predeceased him.

Source: A Dictionary of Irish Biography, Henry Boylan (ed.), Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, 1998.