Entertainment

The woman who persuaded Frank McCourt to write Angela's Ashes

As the musical version of her late husband's childhood memoir is set to take to the Irish stage this summer, Jenny Lee chats to Ellen Frey McCourt about watching her husband shed tears as he penned Angela's Ashes, how her became a voice coach for Paul Newman and how his legacy is continuing

Ellen Frey McCourt pictured with her late husband Frank McCourt
Ellen Frey McCourt pictured with her late husband Frank McCourt Ellen Frey McCourt pictured with her late husband Frank McCourt

"ARE any of my ex-wives here?" These were the first words Ellen McCourt heard her future husband say as he entered the Lion's Head bar in Greenwich Village, New York, an infamous literary hangout.

It wasn't long before the 35-year-old public relations consultant was charmed by the then 59-year-old aspiring author, Frank McCourt.

"When Frank retired from teaching he went off to San Francisco for 18 months and that evening he had just returned to New York. It was December 8 1989 and very cold. He was wearing this enormous Irish houndstooth coat and gave a rather unusual opening gambit.

"Shortly afterwards I went home to California for Christmas and in New York it's a real sign of intention if somebody comes to Kennedy airport to pick you up on your return. Frank made that mistake and I thought 'this is serious'," she laughs.

Frank McCourt was born in New York City's Brooklyn borough, on August 19 1930 to Malachy McCourt, an ex-IRA man from Moneyglass, Co Antrim, and Angela Sheehan from Limerick.

In the midst of the Great Depression, together with his parents and his four younger siblings, Frank moved back to Ireland, living in a one-bedroom rain-soaked slum. It was a difficult childhood as his alcoholic father drank away what little income the family had.

Frank is of course best known for writing Angela's Ashes, his memoir about the misery and squalor of his childhood. The 1996 publication caused a literary sensation, winning multiple accolades including the Pulitzer Prize. It has gone on to sell more than 10 million copies worldwide and been translated into 126 languages.

It was Ellen who persuaded Frank, in his mid-60s, to stop talking about his years in Ireland, and finally sit down and write about them.

"He had a huge imagination and had all kinds of ideas for things he wanted to do. I suggested that out of all the many projects he had percolating in his head, he should pick one and just focus on it.

"Angela's Ashes was something that was deep in his marrow and he had been tilling this soil for a long time. So when he sat down to actually write it, which was two months after we got married, it poured out of him in about 13 months of constant writing. His editor didn't really edit it. Everything on the page is more or less how Frank wrote it."

Perhaps that rawness is what made the memoir such a success. Ellen recounts that despite his own interviews denying it was a difficult experience, Frank did suffer some emotional turmoil while recalling his childhood memories.

"I would periodically find him in tears, sitting on the couch sobbing, as he wrote about his father leaving four boys and his mother and not sending money back.

"He could not wrap his mind around how a man could choose the bottle over the babies. He came to realise alcoholism was a disease and not a choice. That's how he was able to write without bitterness; but the book took an emotional toll."

Ellen describes herself as Frank's "cheerleader" rather than his critic.

"Frank was an early riser and he would get up early and make coffee and he would come back to bed with the work he had written the day before and read it to me as we drank coffee.

"I didn't think it useful to be saying 'why did you choose that word', because when you are in the throws of a creative process I think one should be encouraged and not criticised.

"I had only to hear him read it to me to know it was something special. I had never read or heard language like that. The story of poverty and hardship is not unique to Frank, or Ireland. But what is unique is the way he tells it, not least that it's through the eyes of a child."

I ask her, did the success of Angela's Ashes changed Frank?

"Not a bit. The only difference was he had less time because he was travelling so much and doing interviews. He suddenly became in everybody's eyes the expert on all things Irish – poverty, peace, the Troubles in the north, the Irish literary revival and the Celtic Tiger."

Ellen even reveals Frank became a voice coach to Paul Newman for his role as Irish crime boss John Rooney, chief rival of Al Capone, in the 2002 movie Road to Perdition.

"Paul Newman was playing an Irish mobster and he wanted to have an Irish accent, furnished with many years of living in America. He came over to our apartment, with a bottle of Tullamore Dew and doughnuts, and got Frank to record segments of the script, so he could copy his accent," she laughs.

Frank died in 2009, from skin cancer, at a hospice in Manhattan, but his legacy lives on. Ellen is a regular visitor to Limerick, where a museum is now open in his memory.

This summer a major musical adaptation of Angela's Ashes will be brought to the Irish stage, offering an uplifting story of hope, fortitude and family, with a haunting score adding to the emotional impact and humour of the story.

Once again Ellen has taken on the role of cheerleader. Her enthusiasm for the project stems back to its origins as a student musical in Derby, when lyricist and composer Adam Howells and writer Paul Hurt asked for permission to stage the show.

Ellen flew to England, with Frank's brother Alfie, to see the production by Uncontained Arts and was impressed by its potential.

"I was a theatre major in college and I love musicals, so for me it was a thrill. The music is wonderful and the story is decidedly based on the book – not based on the film which is damp and gloomy."

On the face of it, Angela's Ashes might not be everyone's idea of a feel-good musical, but Ellen disagrees.

"Annie was an orphan and that turned into a musical; Sweeney Todd is no bed of roses – and what about Oliver?

"Right now the hottest ticket in Broadway is a musical called Dear Evan Henson about a young man who is socially awkward. It involves a single mother and a suicide. Any subject can be musicalised, in my opinion."

Over the past three years, Ellen has met on a number of occasions with the new show's producer, Pat Moylan.

"I was happy to grant the rights to it and have been fully supportive of it through all it's incarnations and am very grateful to have had the scripts shared with me," adds Ellen, who would love to see the musical transfer to the West End and Broadway.

Set in 1940s Ireland, the musical follows young Frank’s escapades and experiences in a Dickensian landscape peopled by a drunken father, a helpless mother, pompous priests, bullying schoolmasters, money-lenders and dancing-teachers, culminating in his defiant escape to a new life in America.

The cast is led by West End stars Eoin Cannon in the role of Frank and Jacinta Whyte as Angela, while Belfast actor Marty Maguire plays Frank's brother Malachy.

:: Angela's Ashes – The Musical will be performed at Limerick's Lime Tree Theatre from July 6-15, Dublin's BordGáis Energy Theatre from July 18-30 and Belfast's Grand Opera House from August 1-5.