Bryan Murray takes a poignant trip down memory lane and opens up about living with Alzheimer’s in a moving RTE show which airs tonight.
The Fair City actor, who revealed his diagnosis earlier this week, revisits the chapters of his career in Keys to My Life with Brendan Courtney. The pair meet at the terraced house in Rathgar, Dublin, he shares with his on screen wife and real life partner, Una Crawford O’Brien.
In reply to Brendan’s question about his age Bryan says he’s 71, before Una gently corrects him and says: “You’ll be 73 in July.” Bryan tells Brendan: “I have a little problem with my memory. If you tell me something in the morning by lunchtime I’ve forgotten it.
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“We’re doing everything we can to support it. She’s [Una] wonderful.”
During the programme Bryan and Brendan visit his former addresses in Dublin, London and Liverpool on a journey filled with nostalgia. Bryan relives the roles that made him famous from Flurry Knox in The Irish RM to Shifty Boswell in Bread and soap villain Trevor Jordache.
Recalling his time as the Brookside baddie he reveals: “People still come up and say, ‘Trevor Jordache, I thought you were still under the patio’.“A few times I was told I was going to have to have a police escort to get here [to work].”
Bryan also tells how he earned $1.2million over five years fronting an American TV commercial for Irish Spring soap. The veteran actor reveals he then lost millions in a failed theme park venture, Poga’s Wonderland, which opened in Naas, Co Kildare, in 2004.
He says: “We lost everything. People didn’t come. It was a lot of money. It took a couple of years to pay it back.
“It haunted us for such a long time.” As they part ways at the end of their trip a defiant Bryan, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease three years ago, shows his courage.
He says: “I’m not going to let it beat me, do you know what I mean?Having dementia and what’s possible after dementia is a pretty scary thing, but they’ll have to drag me away.”
- Keys to My Life is on RTE One tonight at 8.30pm.
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