Vincent Dowling, Irish director and actor who led Great Lakes Theater Festival, dies at 83
Plus this from the obit:
"Though he made command appearances at the Reagan White House and won an Emmy Award in 1983 for a production of J.M. Synge's "The Playboy of the Western World" that he directed for PBS, Dowling might be remembered best for inviting a 20-year-old Tom Hanks to join Great Lakes in 1977. Dowling had directed him a year earlier in a production at California State University-Sacramento.
"Vincent's the reason I'm an actor, man," Hanks told a reporter decades later. "To act with Vincent on the stage is to share the wings with a master."