Mary Pat Kelly remembers her longtime friend, Frank Price who served as chairman of Columbia Pictures twice and also headed Universal Pictures and Universal Television.
Frank Price’s death on August 25th at age 95 generated glowing obituaries, fitting for a man who was a force in the entertainment industry for over 50 years first as a writer producer in television, then as studio head who ultimately established his own company Price Entertainment. He led Columbia and Universal to some of their greatest successes, overseeing hit movies in a range of genres. In 1982 he green lit both Tootsie and Ghandi and followed Ghostbusters in 1984 with Out of Africa.
But these accolades missed an essential fact about Frank Price, his connection to his Irish heritage through his mother’s family the Morans of County Mayo.
I got to know Frank, his wife Katherine and his mother Winnie Moran Price when I began as a screenwriter at Columbia Pictures in 1982. Our friendship grew over the decades.
During this same period I did some work for Irish America and embraced the magazine’s motto ‘Pride in Our Heritage,’ Mórtas Cine.
I began to trace my own ancestry and asked Frank if he’d be interested in learning about the Morans. He had no information about where they originated in Ireland. He only knew Francis Moran had come to the Scranton, Pennsylvania area and worked as a coal miner and then moved to Decatur, Illinois where the Morans had prospered. Their funeral home is still operating.
Winnie remembered the diocesan Bishop coming to dinner. It was a bit of an upset when she married William Price, a Protestant of Welsh ancestry. But she was unapologetic, her own woman, her own life.
The Prices moved to California where Winnie helped support the family as a waitress in the Warner Brothers commissary in the 1940’s collecting autographs from the stars for her son. Frank had a framed picture of Humphrey Bogart signed To Frankie.
Families like the Morans or my Kellys, who escaped from The Great Starvation in the 1840’s, often lost touch with the specifics of their heritage. But now the Irish government was computerizing church records and I was having some success tracing my ancestors. Would he like me to look into his? He would.
Which was why I pulled up to Enniscoe House near Crossmolina one fall evening in 1992.
It was my dream of a Georgian House — set in an oak forest, on the shores of a lake with rooms full of books and old pictures and many fireplaces. Susan Kellett welcomed me. Her ancestors had lived in this house since 1790. She had helped establish the North Mayo Heritage Center on the grounds as a repository for all those computerized records and a source of information.
She introduced me to Tony Donohue, a knowledgeable local historian. He would track down the Morans, no problem.
Then in 1993 BBC Northern Ireland invited Frank Price to take part in a special program. Providence. After the filming, Frank, Katherine and I, with my husband, Martin the Tyrone man, driving, set out for Enniscoe House.
There Susan and Tony Donohue settled us down by the fire. He opened a brown leather book, turned crackling pages and pointed.
“There,” he said. “Look, Francis Moran paid rent for his few acres of farmland in Aldergoole. Your ancestor, Frank,” he said.
“Here we are. You and me and Susan all the strands of history coming together. Morans Abu.”
He stood up.
“Come on, come on,” Tony said. I’ll take you to your home place.
He named the town lands we drove through; Bofeenaun, Massbrook, Lavally and then came to Pollawarla. We followed Tony out of the car through a field.
“Here,” he said. “A whole clatter of Morans lived right here. Your family.”
“Gorgeous countryside,” Katherine said. “What’s the name of that beautiful mountain?
“Nephin,” Tony said.
Frank smiled, “I only wish my Mother were here.”
The next day we drove to Derry so they could meet John and Pat Hume. Over dinner Pat talked about a movie she had just seen that really touched her. Shadowlands, the story of C.S. Lewis and his wife Joy.
“But that’s Frank’s movie,” I blurted out. “Produced by Price Entertainment.”
She hadn’t known.
When Frank and Katherine returned to Los Angeles, they became very involved in the Ireland Fund. Frank drew on his longtime relationships to host some of the most glamorous and generous Hollywood Galas. Amazing for me to sit at his table between Gregory Peck and Sidney Poitier. He shepherded Maeve Binchy’s Circle of Friends into production. The 1995 movie introduced actors Minnie Driver and Alan Cumming and gave Chris O’Donnell and Colin Firth important early roles.
Frank was always good at spotting talent. He’d been impressed by a young comic who did a short set on the BBC Show.
“Patrick Kielty is going to be a star,” he said. (He was right. Kielty is now the host of Ireland’s ‘The Late Late Show’ on RTE).
Since both Frank and I had ancestors who had escaped from The Great Starvation, we wanted to tell that story in the epic movie it deserved and had never received. I wrote a script set in a fictional Ballymoran. But even Frank Price’s clout couldn’t get a studio to back the project.
“We need a novel,” he said. “You write it.”
“Me? What about you?”
“I’ve been working on my opus for years,” he said. “It’s set in Hollywood. I sometimes think running studios has been my very sophisticated way of procrastinating.”
So Galway Bay is in development, as they say.
He continued to make important movies such as The Tuskegee Airmen for HBO. He said the screening attended by the veteran Tuskegee Airmen gave him one of the most satisfying moments of his career. This from a man who had won many Academy Awards.
My father’s cousin, Sister Mary Erigina, who lived to be 107, told me our ancestors who left Ireland believed they would return there when they died.
May you rest in peace, Frank, with Nephin watching over you.
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