Skip to main content
Comhairle Cathrach Bhaile Átha Cliath / Dublin City Council

Main navigation

  • Residential
  • Business
  • Your Council
  • Events
Menu
Menu
Advanced Search

Main navigation (mobile)

  • Residential
  • Business
  • Your Council
  • Events
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. Libraries
  3. blog
Language switcher
  • English
  • Gaeilge

Jimmy Davenport Photograph Album

Back to blog

Published on 3rd November 2021

Share
  • Share via Twitter
  • Share via Facebook
  • Share via WhatsApp

Jimmy DavenportJimmy Davenport (pictured here on the left in the unpeaked army hat) was a member of the orchestra and occasional performer at the Capitol and Theatre Royal theatres in Dublin in the 1930s and 40s.

These venues are long gone but the white marble staircase of the Frank Matcham designed Theatre Royal survives as the centrepiece stairway in Marks and Spencer on Grafton Street.

Judging by his autographed photo album which has just been digitised, Jimmy Davenport was a bit of a showbiz addict.  He collected over a hundred signed portraits of visiting celebrities and photos of some set pieces from the Theatre Royal.

Jimmy Durante and the three Stooges

The 3 Stooges, Jimmy Durante, (pictured above) George Formby and Gracie Fields are some of the stars who appear.  There’s a young, luminous Elizabeth Welch famous for her renditions of 'Love for Sale' and 'Stormy Weather'.  Matinee idol, Ramón Novarro, one time successor to Rudolph Valentino, smoulders in his signed portrait, complete with pencil moustache. He may have been most celebrated for his scantily clad depiction of Ben Hur (1925).

Elizabeth Welch and Ramón Novarro

Elizabeth Welch and Ramón Novarro

When Hollywood gigs were thin on the ground, American stars toured the theatres of Europe. Billy Costello pops up. His baby face is an unlikely front for the grizzled tones of Popeye the Sailor for whom he supplied the original voice.  He was let go after 24 films by the Max Fleischer animation company, allegedly for “bad behaviour”.  Perhaps he cleaned them out of spinach.

Remarkable pictures abound of acrobatic troupes, women armed with accordions and singing cowboys.  A plaintive looking French mime artist hovers at the edge of a stark, bare stage in sepia tones. The inscription reads “Bien sincerement, Jimmy…” and then an indecipherable scrawl.

Jimmy Davenport himself is here.  He appeared in a ‘miniature tattoo’, a recruiting show (1940) that featured 200 soldiers, called ‘Roll the Drum’. It broke Dublin box office records. He is photographed in soldier’s uniform with some cohorts on the roof of the Theatre Royal.

A small Polaroid type shot of Jack Doyle – ‘The Gorgeous Gael’ and Movita, the actress who became his second wife is also signed.  He was a champion heavyweight boxer who doubled up as a singer. They were married round the corner from Pearse Street Library in St. Andrew’s Church, Westland Row in the midst of their Irish Tour of the 1940s.  Their marriage didn’t last.  Movita subsequently married Marlon Brando.

Old mother Riley and Kitty

There are pictures from pantomimes and of ‘Old Mother Riley’ & and her ‘daughter’, Kitty.  Mother Riley, played by Arthur Lucan in drag, and Kitty McShane were a very successful comedy duo and a sort of precursor to the current day phenomenon of Brendan O’Carroll’s Mrs. Brown.

There’s a shot taken in 1948.  The dancing girls - the Royalettes - are lined up in what looks like a small circus arena with 3 ponies at the centre.  The band is up on high behind them.  It’s hard to see if Jimmy Davenport is in there, the musicians’ figures are too small to register their faces.  There was no pantomime that year and the Variety business was changing.  In the following decade rock and roll and television would have a dramatic impact on the world of entertainment and music theatres would struggle. The last Theatre Royal was demolished in 1962.

View Copyright Statement.

View highlights from the Jimmy Davenport Photo album

Jimmy Davenport Photographic Album

About Guest Blogger

I’m Róisín Sheerin, I’ve been doing work experience at Dublin City Library & Archive, Pearse Street as part of my National Print Museum Cultural & Heritage Course and dipping into Jimmy Davenport’s album has been a revelation to me.

In the course of digitising these photos for the archives, I started to research some of the stars and acts.  Philip B. Ryan’s book ‘The Lost Theatres of Dublin’ and Thomas Myler’s ‘Showtime at the Royal’ proved to be of enormous help.

Walking around the Hawkins St area in recent days where the Theatre Royal once stood and which is now more famous for being the location of Apollo House, it’s been extraordinary to have this background knowledge and to have caught a glimpse of that vanished world.

First published 23rd March, 2017. 

Tags:
image galleries
local studies
photographic collections
Share
  • Share via Twitter
  • Share via Facebook
  • Share via WhatsApp

Genre

action-adventure
crime-thriller
fantasy
fiction
historical fiction
horror
mystery
romance
science fiction
western

Recommended Tags

archives
author spotlight
author visits
biographies
book awards
book clubs
books & reading
business & employment
children
children's books
Citizens in Conflict (series)
Comics
creative writing
Culture Night (podcasts)
digitised works
Dublin Remembers 1916
DVDs
eResources
events
family history
gilbert lecture (podcasts)
graphic novels
history (podcasts)
image galleries
Irish fiction
learning
libraries & archive news
local studies
music
non-fiction
photographic collections
podcasts
publications
reviews
staff picks
talking books
teens
text version
travel
videos
websites
work matters
Close

Main navigation

  • Residential
  • Business
  • Your Council
  • Events

Footer menu

  • About Us
    • Careers
    • Who Does What
    • DCC Alerts
    • News and Media
    • Policies and Documents
  • Using dublincity.ie
    • Website Accessibility
    • Privacy Statement
    • Terms & Conditions
    • Sitemap
  • Statutory Obligations
    • Freedom of Information
    • Data Protection
    • Access to Information on the Environment
    • Protected Disclosures
    • Lobbying
    • Official Languages Act
    • Ethics
    • Public Sector Duty
    • Bye Laws
    • Sell to government
  • Get in Touch / Feedback
    • Contact Us
    • Online Services
    • Make a Payment
    • Make a Complaint
    • Public Consultations

Customer Services Centre

Address

Civic Offices
Wood Quay
Dublin 8
D08 RF3F
Ireland

Telephone Number
01 222 2222
Email Address
[email protected]

Comhairle Cathrach Bhaile Átha Cliath / Dublin City Council
Dublin City Council
Visit our other sites

© 2025 Dublin City Council

The website encountered an unexpected error. Try again later.