Arthur Lucan

Biography

Arthur Towle was in show business from when he left school in1900 until his dying day. He started as an Irish character comedian in British music halls. Touring Ireland with this act in 1913, he met Kitty McShane and married her later that year (she was 16, he 28). They gradually evolved the act of "Old Mother Riley and her Daughter" (Arthur, in drag, playing the former), which maintained popularity for nearly 40 years, and Arthur adopted the stage name Lucan to sound more Irish. The fame of Lucan and McShane did not go much beyond provincial music halls until the first Old Mother Riley film was released. Cheaply made and highly profitable, 17 films (1937-1952) starred Lucan in the richly comic role of Mrs. Riley, making him a Top Ten star in England in 1942. The gangly Mother Riley was usually a charwoman or laundress, but some entries found her running a shop or pub with the aid of her daughter, Kitty. Lucan's comedy came from Mother Riley's absurd predicaments, eccentric ways, facial and bodily contortions, and malapropism-filled tirades against all who displeased her, seasoned with "knockabout" slapstick. By 1951, Lucan and McShane had separated, and Kitty did not appear in Arthur's last film, though he continued to support her. He was struggling with a large tax debt in 1954 when he unexpectedly collapsed and died in a Yorkshire theatre before his stage show.