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David Kelly Irish Actor

February 28, 2012 by · Comments Off on David Kelly Irish Actor 

David Kelly Irish Actor, Irish character actor David Kelly, whose 70-year career in stage, films and TV included some n*ked motorcycling in “Waking Ned Devine,” has died in Dublin at age 82. No cause of death was given.

Kelly was best known to American audiences as the Irish villager who motorcycled down a muddy country lane in only helmet, socks and shoes in the 1998 comedy hit “Waking Ned Devine.” Kelly, who earned a SAG nomination for that role, later would joke that his career took off when he was in his 70s, once casting agents finally knew about his sexy body.

He also played Charlie Bucket’s grandfatherly escort in Tim Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

Irish and British audiences remember him best as a work-dodging Irish builder opposite John Cleese in a 1975 episode of “Fawlty Towers.” He also played a dim-witted, one-armed dishwasher in the late 1970s British sitcom “Robin’s Nest.”

In Ireland, Kelly was a highly praised Dublin stage actor in the 1950s and ’60s. He also depicted doomed tenement dweller Rashers Tierney in the 1980 Irish historical miniseries “Strumpet City.”

Born in Dublin and educated in the city’s Catholic schools, Kelly got his start on the Dublin stage at age 8. He was honored for lifetime achievement at the 2005 Irish Film and Television Awards ceremony.

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