William Worth Belknap

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Worth, Irene (1916– ), American actress, formerly a teacher, who was not seen on the stage until 1942, when she toured with Elisabeth Bergner in Margaret Kennedy's Escape Me Never. A year later she made her New York début in Martin Vale's The Two Mrs Carrolls, and in 1944 she was in London, where she spent most of the next 30 years, her first appearance being in Saroyan's The Time of Your Life (1946). She created the role of Celia Coplestone in T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party (1949) at the Edinburgh Festival, repeating it in New York and London, and then joined the Old Vic company, where her Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1951) showed a strong talent for comedy and her other roles included Desdemona in Othello (also 1951) and Portia in The Merchant of Venice (1953). After appearing in the first season of the Stratford (Ontario) Festival in 1953 she was seen in London in N. C. Hunter's A Day by the Sea (also 1953) and Betti's The Queen and the Rebels (1955). Two contrasting roles—Marcelle in Feydeau's Hotel Paradiso (1956) and the title-role in Schiller's Mary Stuart (NY, 1957)—were followed by Sara Callifer in Graham Greene's The Potting Shed (1958) before she again played Mary at the Old Vic (also 1958). After her Rosalind in As You Like It at Stratford, Ontario, in 1959, she starred in New York in Lillian Hellman's Toys in the Attic (1960), and then joined the RSC in London, playing Lady Macbeth, Goneril in Peter Brook's production of King Lear (both 1962), and Dr Zahnd in Dürrenmatt's The Physicists (1963). During another visit to New York she starred in Albee's Tiny Alice (1964; RSC, 1970) and she reappeared in the West End in three roles in Coward's Suite in Three Keys (1966). After an excellent performance as Hesione Hushabye in Shaw's Heartbreak House in 1967, she showed great emotional force as Jocasta in Sophocles' Oedipus at the Old Vic in 1968, and returned to Stratford, Ontario, in the title-role in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler in 1970. Her gift for comedy gave an unusual piquancy and charm to her Arkadina in Chekhov's The Seagull at Chichester in 1973. In 1975 she returned to New York, where she was seen in Tennessee Williams's Sweet Bird of Youth, as Ranevskaya in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard (1977), as Winnie in Beckett's Happy Days (1979), and as Ella in Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman (1980). She later appeared in London as Volumnia in Coriolanus (National Theatre, 1984) and in Shaw's You Never Can Tell (1987). She again played Volumnia in New York in 1988.

William Worth Belknap 1829–90, U.S. Secretary of War (1869–76), b. Newburgh, N.Y. After practicing law in Iowa, he served in the Civil War, was a division commander under Sherman in Georgia and the Carolinas, and became a major general in 1865. An internal revenue collector in Iowa (1865–69), he was made Secretary of War by Grant. In 1876 a political scandal broke when a House committee found evidence that Belknap had indirectly received annual bribes from the trader at an Indian post. Impeachment was unanimously voted. Grant accepted Belknap's resignation. At the Senate trial, the vote was 35 "guilty," 25 "not guilty" —falling short of the two thirds necessary to convict. Of the 25, 22 declared that they voted "not guilty" on the ground that the Senate lacked jurisdiction after Belknap's accepted resignation. He later practiced law in Washington, D.C.

Scully, William (1821–1906), member of a prosperous Co. Tipperary Catholic landed family. An armed affray involving his tenants at ballycohey in August 1868 earned him nationwide notoriety as a proprietor. Meanwhile he was speculating in American land, eventually acquiring a quarter of a million acres, mostly in Kansas and Nebraska. This he exploited in a distinctive and lucrative fashion. At his death his estate was worth at least $10 million.

Richard Vincent Comerford