The recent death of Tony Inglis, aged 86 years, recalls the early days of the Irish film industry and his work as a film art director. He was well known in the film world in Dublin and London and was one of the few Irish people to have been nominated for an Academy Award. This was in 1976 for his art director of The Man Who Would Be King. The honour went unnoticed, partly because he was living in London at the time, but also because, in characteristic fashion, he did not draw attention to it.
The French term bricoleur means someone who is an artistic jack-of-all-trades, a craftsman who has a wide range of skills and who uses them to bring together the various elements of a culture in new and exciting ways. These are good qualities to have in film art direction and Tony Inglis had them in abundance.
Born in Dublin in 1911, he had vivid memories of living in Mount Street during the 1916 Rising and of the family home being taken over by British soldiers. He attended the O'Brien Institute and went on to have a brief vocation for the Christian Brothers, with whom he went to study in England.
On returning to Dublin, he went to the College of Art in Kildare Street, where he worked with Sean Keating, Maurice McGonagle and Oliver Sheppard. He won a scholarship to Brussels for a statue he did of St Francis of Assisi. He met his wife, Pat Burke Kennedy, at college. They married in 1936 and went to London where he worked with J. Walter Thompson, the well-known American advertising agency.
When the war broke out, he came back and joined the Irish Marine Service; but not for long. He was offered work by Harry Crosbie, drawing war maps for the Cork Examiner. In 1942 he won another award, this time for designing the seal for the Maritime Institute.
His break into films came in 1943 when he was invited to work on Henry V, which starred Laurence Olivier. The battle scenes were filmed in Powerscourt and Tony worked with a number of students from the art college making the armour, the costumes and sets. He went on to work on a number of films including London Belongs to Me, I See a Dark Stranger, The Blue Lagoon, Cap- tain Boycott, No Resting Place, Johnny Nobody and Shake Hands with the Devil.
Film work is sporadic and between times Tony did various art works, particularly in stained glass. Examples of his work are still to be seen in the Flowing Tide pub in Lower Abbey Street, Dublin and in the marriage chapel of St Agatha's Church in North William Street. He also designed and made the crib for St Andrew's Church in Westland Row. He designed the sets for Hilton Edwards and Michael MacLiammor productions of Liffey Lane and Death of a Salesman. In 1951, he directed two public health films, Every- body's Business and Keep Your Teeth.
Tony Inglis went on to work with some famous film directors, including Alfred Hitchcock (The Man Who Knew Too Much) and Billy Wilder (The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes), but he will be remembered most for his work in the early days of the Irish film industry.
T.F.I.