Pauline Flanagan


Pauline Flanagan was a County Sligo-born Irish actress who had a long career on stage. American television audiences best knew her as Maeve Ryan's sister, Annie Colleary, on the soap opera Ryan's Hope in 1979 and again in 1981. She later returned to the show as Sister Mary Joel.

Life

Her family was deeply political and supported the Republican side during the Irish Civil War. Both of her parents, Patrick and Elizabeth Flanagan, both served as Lord Mayor of Sligo. She was good friends with fellow Irish actresses Joan O'Hara and Paddy Croft. Flanagan spent much of the early 1950s touring with Anew McMaster, where she met Harold Pinter at the Gate's Pinter Festival.

Career

She appeared in many Broadway plays, starting in 1957 with Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood. She starred in the 1976 Broadway revival of The Innocents. She appeared on Broadway in Philadelphia, Here I Come! in 1994.
She appeared Off-Broadway, several times with the Irish Repertory Theatre, including Juno and the Paycock. She appeared in the Harold Prince play Grandchild of Kings at the Irish Repertory Theatre in February 1992, receiving the 1992 Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Best Actress. Other Off-Broadway work included Yeats: A Celebration.
She appeared in the play Summer, by Hugh Leonard at the Hudson Guild Theater, directed by Brian Murray.

Death

A resident of Glen Rock, New Jersey, she died at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, New Jersey one day before her 78th birthday of heart failure following a battle with lung cancer. She was survived by her husband, George Vogel, a sister, Maura McNally, and her daughters Melissa Brown and Jane Holtzen.

Awards

In 1997 she won the Barclays Theatre Awards for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her role in Jennifer Johnston's Desert Lullaby, at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast.
She was nominated for the 1982 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for Medea in which she performed on Broadway in 1982. In 2001 she won an Olivier Award, Best Supporting Actress, for her performance in Frank McGuinness' Dolly West's Kitchen at the Old Vic.