Biography
Arthur Shields (1896–1970) was an Irish actor who worked in theatre, film and television. The younger brother of actor Barry Fitzgerald, he began his career at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin at the age of seventeen and appeared in more than three hundred roles there.
An Irish nationalist, he fought in the Easter Rising of 1916 and was interned in Frongoch, Wales. In 1936 John Ford brought him to the United States to appear in the film version of The Plough and the Stars. He later settled in California.
Shields is known for several John Ford films, including The Long Voyage Home (1940), in which he played Donkeyman, How Green Was My Valley (1941) as Mr. Parry, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and The Quiet Man (1952) as the Reverend Playfair. He also appeared in Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), National Velvet (1945) and The River (1951), and made numerous television appearances.
