Bryan's heart is firmly in new role
“Turning 60 is like a wake-up call,” he says. “When you reach a milestone like that, you want to make sure everything is in good working order. So I decided to have my bloods checked. The results came back and my cholesterol was very high — it was 6.9.”
Murray was dismayed. “I thought ‘what am I doing wrong here’? The doctor gave me the choice of going on cholesterol-lowering medication or trying to lower it myself. I went for the second option.”
Murray eliminated high-fat foods, such as cream and cheese, from his diet and added a few miles to his regular walks. With limited success, he had the option of a strict, long-term diet and exercise regime, or taking statins to lower his cholesterol.
“The statins option was a no-brainer, even if I did briefly think ‘uh oh, we’re talking long-term medication here.’ But so what? It meant I could relax my eating habits a bit, while sticking to my daily routine of a 40 to 50-minute walk.”
The medication worked. Murray says men should be proactive about their health. “Men, in particular, can be a bit wussy when it comes to their health,” he says. There’s sort of an attitude of ‘ah, sure, if I ignore it, it’ll go away.’ But the problem is it won’t go away. Men really do need to take more responsibility for their health. The benefits of prevention, and being health-aware, are potentially life-saving. And, in terms of physical energy and general well-being, the rewards of a balanced lifestyle are simply amazing.”
Murray needs energy to keep up with his busy work schedule. Having first trod the boards as a nine-year-old in a school production of The Magic Shoes, Murray wanted to be an actor. His parents insisted on a trade, so he served his time, and worked briefly as an electrician; but eventually he joined Dublin’s Abbey theatre, where his acting career took off.
Interested in Ireland’s turbulent history, Murray was delighted to be involved in the recent State commemoration of the centenary of the lockout, reading with fellow actor, Angela Harding, from James Plunkett’s epic novel, Strumpet City, outside the GPO on Saturday, Aug 31, 100 years to the day of Bloody Sunday, 1913.
Murray feels passionately for those who suffered in the industrial dispute — many of whom were forced by poverty to WWI battlefields. He says it is important to acknowledge their loyalty and endurance.
With family roots in the city’s tenements (his mother Rosaleen lived in a tenement in Henrietta Street between 1936 and 1940), Murray says the lockout, and its dramatisation in Strumpet City, highlighted the appalling living conditions of Dublin’s tenement dwellers. “You’ve got to remember that when Strumpet City was written, in 1969, Dublin’s tenements were still standing. It wasn’t until the mid-1970s that they were finally demolished.” Although separated by a century, there are similarities between the poverty-stricken victims of 1913’s lockout and today’s debt-burdened victims of negative equity. “As always in tough times, it’s the workers that take the biggest hit,” Murray says.
Speaking of his role as Fitz in the 1979 television series of Strumpet City, Murray says: “As a young fellow, working alongside the likes of Cyril Cusack, Peter O’Toole and Peter Ustinov was like a dream come true. To this day, people come up to me in the street and say ‘What about Strumpet City?’ What a great piece of work that was.”
Other memorable television roles include Brookside’s wife-beating, child-abusing Trevor Jordache, who was famously killed by his frazzled, knife-wielding wife and buried under the patio. Murray considers this his most challenging role, not least because “it highlighted the plight of so many silent victims … for the first time, domestic violence was on the national agenda, thanks to a soap storyline. It was so powerful, and resonated so strongly with viewers.”
But arguably the character closest to Murray’s heart is Fair City’s Bob Charles. “I enjoy playing him, because the fellow has so many sides. He’s grumpy and moody and devious and wicked, but he can also be wonderfully funny and kindly and vulnerable. Honestly, I love Bob with all my heart.”
BRYAN MURRAY’S acting career began at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. In London he has been a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre and has been in many West End productions. He most recent stage appearance was in Joseph O’Connor’s adaptation of My Cousin Rachel at Dublin’s Gate Theatre.
His television work includes Fitz in Strumpet City; Flurry Knox in The Irish RM; Shifty in Bread (for which he won BBC TV Personality of the Year); Harry Cassidy in Perfect Scoundrels; Trevor Jordache in Brookside and Bob Charles in Fair City. His film roles include Lynch in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
In 2011 Murray presented TV3’s IFTA nominated documentary The Tenements, and on RTÉ he hosted talk shows Encore and Caught in the Act, and presented Saturday Night Live. More recently he took part in the One City One Book celebration at Dublin Castle, reading extracts from Strumpet City.
- Choose fewer foods from the top of the food pyramid, such as chocolate, crisps, cakes, biscuits and sweets.
- Eat oily food twice weekly.
- Maintain a healthy weight.
- Choose lean meats.
- Drain oil from cooked dishes containing minced meat.
- Choose low-fat dairy products and spreads.
- Use low-fat healthy ways of cooking, like grilling or baking instead of frying.
- Eat more fruit and vegetables.
- Eat more wholegrain varieties of cereals, breads, pasta and rice.
- Be more physically active.
- Stop smoking.
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