About Barry Fitzgerald
William Joseph Shields, known professionally as Barry Fitzgerald, was an Irish stage, film, and television actor. In a career spanning almost forty years, he appeared in such notable films as Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Long Voyage Home (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), The Sea Wolf (1941), Going My Way (1944), None but the Lonely Heart (1944), and The Quiet Man (1952). For Going My Way, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and was simultaneously nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the same performance. In 2020, he was listed at number 11 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors. The Name Below the Title: 65 Classic Movie Character Actors from Hollywood's Golden Age (softcover) (First ed.). Fitzgerald decided to leave his civil service job to join the production and at age 41, he became a full-time actor. Fitzgerald unexpectedly became a leading man when Leo McCarey cast him opposite Bing Crosby in Going My Way, released by Paramount in 1944.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.