His resonant baritone made executives, officers and villains sound as though they expected to be obeyed. We rate Dan O'Herlihy for the credibility he brought them, while wishing more films had asked him to carry the story.
Fi1m perspective
In RoboCop (1987), Dan O'Herlihy plays the Old Man, the chief executive of OCP, with a voice well suited to being obeyed. His rich baritone gives the authority a plausible sound before we have considered what the company does with it. We rate him for making men like this credible without fuss. Paul Verhoeven's film is savage about corporate power, and O'Herlihy is useful casting: we have no difficulty accepting that this man has been put in charge.
His earlier parts included Macduff in Orson Welles's Macbeth (1948). The leading role in Luis Buñuel's Robinson Crusoe (1954) makes the later concentration on supporting parts seem a little wasteful. In a largely one-man film, O'Herlihy had to sustain both the physical effort and the emotional interest. Few substantial leading roles followed, and executives, military officers and eccentrics became regular work across film and television. There is a danger of reducing him to that voice when his early lead required so much more of the actor.
Sidney Lumet's Fail Safe (1964) offers a reason to look beyond the villains: his Brigadier General Warren A. Black brings moral anguish to military authority. The role asks what happens when a man accustomed to responsibility finds it difficult to bear. By The Last Starfighter (1984), his vocal presence has a different use, helping him remain distinctive under heavy prosthetics as Grig, a reptilian alien co-pilot. Supporting work could still ask something of him.
We would still start with RoboCop, without pretending that its considerable force belongs chiefly to O'Herlihy. We were moved by it because Peter Weller makes the metal policeman a person worth caring about. O'Herlihy helps make the company around him convincing, but Weller gives the violence its human cost. Take the warning about that violence seriously; then give O'Herlihy more of the evening to himself with Robinson Crusoe.
Biography
Dan O'Herlihy was an Irish actor. Born in Wexford in 1919, he studied architecture at University College Dublin before turning to acting. He began his career on the Dublin stage with the Gate Theatre and Abbey Players, and made his film debut in Carol Reed's Odd Man Out (1947).
O'Herlihy received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his title role in Luis Buñuel's Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1954). He appeared in films including Fail Safe (1964), Waterloo (1970), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), The Last Starfighter (1984) and The Dead (1987). On television he played Andrew Packard in Twin Peaks (1990–91).
He played The Old Man, the chief executive of OCP, in RoboCop (1987) and its 1990 sequel. O'Herlihy was the brother of television director Michael O'Herlihy and married Elsie Bennett in 1945. He died in Malibu, California, in 2005.
