A small, rumpled-faced and twinkly-eyed veteran Hollywood character player, Fitzgerald came from Dublin's Abbey Theatre and became Paramount's resident Irishman in such films as "Going My Way" (1944), for which he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and "The Naked City" (1948). Fitzgerald came to the US in 1936 to star in Sean O'Casey's "The Plough and the Stars" for director John Ford for whom he did some of his finest work ("How Green Was My Valley" 1941, "The Quiet Man" 1952). He was the brother of actor Arthur Shields.
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