Paddy Joyce

Acting

Paddy Joyce

Born 1923-05-31 · Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy

Born Patrizio Schaurek in Trieste, Italy to a Czech father, Frantisek Schaurek, and an Irish mother Eileen (sister of James) Joyce, Paddy Joyce was an Irish actor of British stage, film and television. Returning to Dublin at the age of five following his father's death, Joyce studied at Belvedere College, the alma mater of his famous uncle. After school, Paddy turned his attention to singing. Initially, he formed a close harmony quartet with three other gentlemen named Four Dots and a Dash, subsequently renamed The Four Ramblers. In 1949, he was part of a trio with two ladies named The Humoresques, which toured Canada with the popular English comedian and actor George Formby. Turning to actor, Joyce took his mother's maiden name because Schaurek limited him to Eastern European roles. He made his cinematic debut in The Cruel Sea and performed in Lionel Bart and Joan Littlewood's Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’be in the early 60s, before later working regularly with Ken Loach, appearing in The Big Flame, written by Jim Allen, and Poor Cow. He also starred in Allen's play The Lump. Joyce was a regular in two of the UK's biggest soaps. Between 1968 and 1974, he had a recurring role as the rag and bone man Tommy Deakin in Coronation Street, and between 1990 and 1993 he played John Royle, the father of Queen Vic owner Eddie Royle (Michael Melia) in EastEnders. Joyce lived in Muswell Hill, London, with his Canadian wife, Dorothy, and two children. He died of a stroke in London in the year 2000, aged 77.

Acting credits

Alice in Wonderland poster
6.2

Alice follows a white rabbit down a rabbit-hole into a whimsical Wonderland, where she meets characters like the delightful Cheshire Cat, the clumsy White Knight, a rude caterpillar, and the hot-tempered Queen of Hearts and can grow ten feet tall or shrink to three inches. But will she ever be able to return home?

Alice in Wonderland

1999

The Cruel Sea poster
6.9

At the start of World War II, Cmdr. Ericson is assigned to convoy escort HMS Compass Rose with inexperienced officers and men just out of training. The winter seas make life miserable enough, but the men must also harden themselves to rescuing survivors of U-Boat attacks, while seldom able to strike back. Traumatic events afloat and ashore create a warm bond between the skipper and his first officer.

The Cruel Sea

1953

Erik the Viking poster
5.9

Erik the Viking gathers warriors from his village and sets out on a dangerous journey to Valhalla, to ask the gods to end the Age of Ragnorok and allow his people to see sunlight again. A Pythonesque satire of Viking life.

Erik the Viking

1989

Poor Cow poster
6.4

Joy lives a life filled with bad choices. At a young age, she marries and has a child–with an abusive thief who quickly ends up incarcerated. Left alone, she takes up with the guy's mate, another thief, who seems to give her some happiness but who also ends up locked up. She then takes up with a series of seedy types who offer nothing but momentary pleasure–if that.

Poor Cow

1967

S.O.S. Titanic poster
6.0

The Titanic disaster as seen through the eyes of one couple in each of the three classes on board.

S.O.S. Titanic

1980

Oh! What a Lovely War poster
6.6

The working-class Smiths change their initially sunny views on World War I after the five boys of the family witness the harsh reality of trench warfare.

Oh! What a Lovely War

1969

The Lump poster
NR

The Lump is an uncompromising exploration of exploitation and resistance within the building trade.

The Lump

1967

Britannia Hospital poster
6.2

Britannia Hospital, an esteemed English institution, is marking its gala anniversary with a visit by the Queen Mother herself. But when investigative reporter Mick Travis arrives to cover the celebration, he finds the hospital under siege by striking workers, ruthless unions, violent demonstrators, racist aristocrats, an African cannibal dictator, and sinister human experiments.

Britannia Hospital

1982

Captured poster
4.2

Directed by cult British director John Krish, the film was sponsored by the Army Kinematograph Corporation. This tightly plotted drama shows British POWs enduring brainwashing and torture during the Korean War, thereby revealing what a soldier could expect if he was ever captured by enemy forces.

Captured

1959

No artwork available
NR

A story of the timeless futility of war and death by war, of men who fought for their country, killed for a dream of freedom and died because they were betrayed.

Ireland, Mother Ireland

1971

Queen Kong poster
3.5

A female film crew journeys to Africa where a giant ape, Queen Kong, falls in love with the crew's male star.

Queen Kong

1976

Red Monarch poster
5.4

British comedy satirising Stalin's inner circle as an absolute monarchs court. In the face of rampant abuse of power and poisonous distrust some still manage to keep faith with the Bolshevist creed until the very end. In front of the firing squad a stalwart bolshevist of the first hour exclaims: "Even in the best democracy errors are being made!"

Red Monarch

1983

Lady Caroline Lamb poster
5.9

Lady Caroline Lamb, dissatisfied in her marriage, has an affair with the dashing Romantic poet Lord Byron.

Lady Caroline Lamb

1972

Sparrows Can't Sing poster
5.3

Charlie returns to the East End after two years at sea to find his house demolished and wife Maggie gone. Everyone else knows she is now shacked up with married bus driver Bert and a toddler, and they all watch with more than a little interest at the trail of mayhem Charlie leaves as he goes about sorting things out.

Sparrows Can't Sing

1963

The Falklands Factor poster
7.0

Is there nothing new under the sun? 1770. The South Atlantic. A fleet sets sail from Buenos Aires to expel the British forces and reconquer the Falkland Islands. A major international crisis explodes. What follows may sound strangely familiar, but is firmly based on the historical record and the actual speeches and writings of the time.

The Falklands Factor

1983

Cover Girl Killer poster
5.1

A madman is on the loose... killing fashion models that appear on the cover of magazines. The police start a manhunt in an attempt to capture the killer.

Cover Girl Killer

1959

Tim Driscoll's Donkey poster
8.0

Story of how a young Irish boy loses the donkey he has reared from birth.

Tim Driscoll's Donkey

1955

The Chain poster
7.0

Comedy featuring interweaving stories of seven households caught up in a property chain on moving day, each one dependent on the other.

The Chain

1984

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne poster
6.6

A penniless middle-aged spinster scrapes by giving piano lessons in the Dublin of the 1950s. She makes a sad last bid for love with a fellow resident of her rundown boarding house, who imagines she has the money to bankroll the business he hopes to open.

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

1987

The Big Flame poster
6.8

After a prolonged industrial dispute in the Liverpool Docks, the striking workers reject management demands of a return to work and decide instead to occupy the docks and run the operation themselves.

The Big Flame

1969

The Grass Arena poster
8.5

The Grass Arena is based on the autobiography of John Healy. Raised in an strongly religious family, with an abusive father, John soon learns that he has to defend himself. Growing into adulthood he takes up boxing, but soon falls victim to alcoholism. His boxing career over, John takes to the Grass Arena (the park) where he lives with other alcoholics. Prison time introduces him to a new and unexpected path.

The Grass Arena

1992

The Cat Gang poster
6.7

The Cat Gang is a group of precocious British kids. They have a habit of hanging around a grown-up customs official who wishes that they'd beat it. But the Gang comes in handy when a smuggling gang arrives on the scene.

The Cat Gang

1959

No artwork available
NR

Newlyweds Jackson and Daphne are on honeymoon when they find themselves in the same hotel as Jackson's old headmaster.

The Grass Widows

1971

The Steel Bayonet poster
5.7

Tunis, 1943. Battle-weary troops of Company C have orders to occupy a derelict Tunisian farmhouse. They are to establish an artillery observation post, reporting on enemy movements before the imminent offensive to liberate Tunis. However German infantrymen discover their operations. The ensuing battle for control of this small piece of land will decide who controls Tunis but more critically, the victors in the battle of democracy versus fascism.

The Steel Bayonet

1958