The stars came out to remember the late Maureen Potter at a book launch in the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, this week.
"I think she was a quieter person at home," said Deirdre Purcell, who has compiled and edited Be Delighted: A Tribute to Maureen Potter. Actor Niall Toibin, who first met her in 1953, said she was "very upbeat, but if she didn't like something that was in the script, you knew immediately. She was very direct. She was great company".
Actor Anita Reeves, who shared a dressing room with Potter for three months when they were working together on Hugh Leonard's play, Moving, at the Abbey Theatre, came along with her daughter, Gemma Reeves.
"She was wonderful. And she wasn't funny all the time," she said. "She was a sincere, gentle woman. She could turn from a pussycat into a lion. I was mad about her."
Producer Phyllis Ryan said "she was a lovely warm-hearted lady who would make fun of you and herself but never in a hurtful way. She was bubbly - and very private".
Another contributor, Martin Fahy, former general manager at the Abbey Theatre, recalled her as being "a very humble person".
Senator Feargal Quinn and his wife, Denise, were at the launch as were writers Rose Doyle, Patricia Scanlon, Sarah Webb and Sheila O'Flanagan. Director Joe Dowling recalled Potter's role as Massie Madigan in Juno and the Paycock, when her closing lines "would break your heart".
Others who came to the launch were Olive Braiden, chairwoman of the Arts Council; actor Jim Bartley; writer and actor Donal O'Kelly and his daughter, Clara Purcell (13); playwright Bernard Farrell; entertainer Twink and her daughters, Naomi (11) and Chloë Agnew (15); soprano Bernadette McGreevy; Ben Barnes, artistic director of the Abbey Theatre; and the actor and founder of the Miniature Theatre of Chester in the US, Vincent Dowling.