THE
mother of movie star Jonathan Rhys Meyers died
in a Cork city hospital yesterday — just days
after the actor’s drunken outburst at Dublin
Airport.
The death of Geraldine “Gerri” Meyers-O’Keeffe,
51, at the Mercy University Hospital was
confirmed by the actor’s publicist who said the
family had no further comment to make at this
sad juncture.
The star of hit TV series The Tudors and a
winner of a Golden Ball award for his portrayal
of Elvis Presley in the CBS mini-series "Elvis"
was struggling to cope with his mother’s
ill-health last weekend when he was arrested at
the airport on drink-related public order
offences.
Ms
Meyers-O’Keeffe lived in Glanmire, Co Cork, and
was hugely proud of her son’s rapid rise to fame
as a movie and TV award-winning actor.
“I just gave birth to him. Once he found his
niche in life I encouraged him,” she said when
he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination for
the 2005 CBS mini-series Elvis, in which he
played Presley as a young man.
Two years later playing another king, Henry
VIII, the actor and model has garnered critical
acclaim for the series, which was shot in Co
Wicklow and is gearing up for a second season.
Early in 2006, Jonathan and his mother, with
whom he had a very close and loving
relationship, attended a civic reception at
Cork’s City Hall where he was declared the Cork
Person of the Month.
When Jonathan was this summer ranked 22nd on an
online list of the world’s 100 hottest actors,
as voted for by gay and bisexual men, his mother
responded by saying: “I know for a fact that he
will treat the survey in the way it was
intended, as a bit of fun.”
Last April, Jonathan, not long after the release
of Mission Impossible III, booked into rehab in
the US for alcohol-related problems.
On Saturday last he flew from his home in London
to Dublin to appear on RTÉ’s Tubridy Tonight. On
his attempted return home last Sunday, he was
arrested at Dublin Airport after two drunken
outbursts at check-in desks when told he was
unfit to fly. He was charged with public order
offences and released on bail to appear in
Dublin District Court next month.
“He came in just for the show and he was
scooting off the next day, I think it was back
to London. I met him in the green room before
the show and he was drinking tea. He was very
charming and very affable. He was very lovely to
the make-up artist who was there,” Tubridy later
said in his defence.
In an interview weeks before his arrest, in
which he said he was teetotal, Jonathan said: “I
didn’t drink until I was 25, and I never drank
every day, but when I did, it was bad. It would
be a couple of days that just wouldn’t work out
for me, waking up with a hangover. Drink doesn’t
fit into the groove of where my life is going.”
Source: Irish Examiner
Posted: 21st. November 2007
