Jewel in RTE crown shuns superstar status

Were Milton around today he would desperately seek celebrity through a more modern medium. TV, perhaps. Or Heineken ads.

He would have little in common with Richard Crowley - he who has had fame thrust upon him. Again.

Everyone is agreed. He dislikes the limelight. Popular, well liked, highly respected, very talented, very private, he finds the attention that goes with the terrain difficult. The cult of "personality" is not for him. But he has had to endure it and he does not do so gladly.

Some examples of what has come his way? Here are a few observations from a reasonably mature journalist (female) in one Sunday newspaper. She was writing in October, 1987, when he was presenting Evening Extra on RTE Television. "Richard Crowley, discreet object of desire . . . the sulky pinup with the bee-sting lips and sexy voice . . . his stiff if steamy reticence . . . the pouty dreamboat ... those liquid eyes Poor guy. Poor lady.

It was such hyperbolix which eventually made the man throw his hat at it and temporarily abandon RTE and fame and fortune. It is probably why he has resisted offers to `do' television since. For Richard Crowley is a serious man, whose good looks and wonderful voice have often been more burdensome than advantageous. He is also essentially a shy man. So this time around he treads more warily in the fame pit that is broadcasting.

He has associations with more places in Ireland than the former Taoiseach, Mr Haughey. He was born in Cork in 1960, then lived in five different towns before ending up in Letterkenny. His father worked with a bank - he has described him in the past as "a benevolent dictator". He has one brother who manages a hotel in Limerick.

In 1976 he began writing for local papers and became Donegal correspondent for the Derry Journal. But broadcasting was what attracted him. When RTE community radio came to Letterkenny he did a stint with it. Arising from this, e sent an audition tape to RTE. They listened to it, returned it to him, and said his voice wasn't suitable for national radio. Truly, the man was destined for broadcasting greatness.

He set up his own newspaper with friends, but The North West Advertiser "deserved to disappear", he said later. At the same time, he became involved in pirate radio in Donegal. In 1979, he began working with Radio Carousel in Dundalk, then Drogheda Community Radio, then Boyneside, then Radio Leinster in Dublin.

In 1982, he did an AnCO course in broadcasting at Carr Communications in Dublin. He was about to be "discovered".

He began working on Radio 2 Reports, a magazine programme on the junior radio station, then moved to Radio 2 News, before television beckoned with the departure of Charles Mitchell in 1984. He also hosted Cross Country Quiz for a while. By the autumn of 1985, he was the 9 p.m. TV news anchor man five nights a week. The exposure was intense.

He began to host Evening

Extra, first with Siobhan Cleary, then Bibi Baskin. He could go nowhere. "It leads to problems with other guys in pubs because they think I'm a big-head who is going to run off with their girlfriends," he said at the time.

It was too much. He withdrew, to fade far away and quite forget the" weariness, the fever and the fret. Some say he bought a motorbike and travelled around Albania and the former Yugoslavia. Some say he "did" the Greek islands. Some say he did both.

He next surfaced at Century Radio, in late 1989. Colleagues from the time remember him with affection and respect.

He was in Israel during the Gulf War and reported for Century from there as the scuds hit Tel Aviv. Then "he disappeared from the radar for a while", as one man put it. He lectured in communications at Maynooth, became involved with independent productions for TV, and returned to RTE with It Says in the Papers last spring. He was about to be discovered once more.

Last summer, he hosted the Monday to Friday Between the Lines current affairs programme on Radio 1. In the autumn he began co-hosting Morning Ireland. Now they are describing him as "the jewel in the crown" at RTE. Colleagues are genuine and lavish in their praise. "A consummate professional . . . a terrific team player . . has the great gift of creating good chemistry between himself and colleagues . . . extremely funny a delight, very generous. He has turned down offers of his own TV programme and radio show to stay with Morning Ireland. "There has never been a more meaningful vote of confidence in the programme," says one colleague.

Richard Crowley has arrived once more this time an older and a wiser man.