A Farewell Concert From Ireland
Como's final Christmas special was filmed in January 1994 in Dublin's Point Theatre before an audience of 4,500 people, including Irish President Mary Robinson and Como's friend, the actress Maureen O'Hara. Perry Como's Irish Christmas was a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) production, made by an Irish independent production company in association with RTE. It was directed by Bob Wynn and scripted and co-produced by Irish writer Michael Feeney Callan, who worked closely with Como on what Como viewed as a farewell performance. Como had flu during the show, which took four hours to record. At the show's conclusion, Como apologized to his Dublin audience for a performance he felt was not up to his usual standards.
During his visit to Dublin, Como visited a barber shop called "The Como" on Thomas Street. The owners, lifelong fans who named their business in his honor, had sent photographs of the shop and letters to Como inviting him to visit. Photos of Como with the barbers were framed in the shop. "The Como" closed in 2002 but it remains a household name in The Liberties.
Read more about this topic: Perry Como
Famous quotes containing the words farewell, concert and/or ireland:
“The poplars are felled, farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade,”
—William Cowper (1731–1800)
“... in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing. When one of us dies, they scarcely know where to bury him.... We have no house, no place, no people of our own. We live in the streets, in the parks, in the theatres. We sit in restaurants and concert halls and look about at the hundreds of our own kind and shudder.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“No people can more exactly interpret the inmost meaning of the present situation in Ireland than the American Negro. The scheme is simple. You knock a man down and then have him arrested for assault. You kill a man and then hang the corpse.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)