Fionnula Flanagan

Fionnula Flanagan, born and bred in Dublin, Ireland, got her start in life with English and Irish both rattling around the house. Her folks weren’t exactly fluent in Irish, but they were dead set on making sure their five kids picked it up. Her mom had this saying—“A nation without a language is a nation without a soul”—which, honestly, kind of sticks with you. Fionnula’s never stopped being grateful for that push. She went to the Abbey Theatre School in Dublin and spent some time studying in Switzerland too, so she’s got the whole international flair thing going on. By 1968, she packed up and moved to Los Angeles, setting up shop in Beverly Hills with her husband, Dr. Garrett O’Connor, who happens to be a psychiatrist. Fionnula’s done just about everything—stage, TV, film—you name it. But if you had to pin her down to one big claim to fame, it’s got to be “James Joyce’s Women” from 1985. She didn’t just star in it, she played six different women who all had serious impact on James Joyce’s life. And get this—she wrote, adapted, and produced the whole thing. Talk about multi-talented. She’s always gone on about Joyce being the king of English-language writers—she’s big on “Ulysses,” “Finnegan’s Wake,” and “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Growing up, she actually thought Joyce was a family friend since her parents never shut up about what “Joyce said.” Once she got around to reading his stuff herself, the characters felt like old mates. Wild, right?