Frank Sanquest with David Kossoff and Margaret Rose Mount

Frank Sanquest with David Kossoff and Margaret Rose Mount

Cork Film Festival, Frank Sanquest, David Kossoff, Margaret Rose Mount, Paul Kossoff

This is a black and white photo of the artist Frank Sanquest with David Kossoff, Margaret Rose Mount and an unidentified companion. This is an early photograph of the Cork-born artist and journalist Sanquest, taken in the 1960s. As with other photographs of him in the archive he is wearing his trademark dickie bow but has yet to succumb to wearing glasses. The bespectacled actor David Kossoff stands next to him and appears to be peering around Sanquest who is smiling at the camera holding aloft a plate. The actor Margaret Rose Mount, in a leopard-skin coat draped around her bare shoulders, is smiling broadly while her unidentified companion, on the far right of the photo, looks towards Sanquest and his plate. Behind them we can just about make out a promotional poster for Harp Lager hanging on the wall next to the draped curtains.

David Kossoff (1919-2005) was an English actor, writer and raconteur. He was born in East London to Russian-Jewish parents and worked as a furniture designer before becoming an actor. He has many film credits and won a British Academy Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Film for his role in The Young Lovers (Anthony Asquith,1954). He followed this with the Oscar-winning short film The Bespoke Overcoat (Jack Clayton,1956) which was written by Nikolai Gogol and Wolf Mankowitz, who also came to Cork, and The Mouse That Roared (Jack Arnold,1959) starring Peter Sellers and Jean Seberg who came to Cork with the film St Joan (Otto Preminger, 1957). On the television Kossoff was best-known for his role as the hen-pecked husband Alf Larkin in The Larkins (1958). His wife in the series was the English actor Margaret Rose Mount OBE (1915-2001) who is identified in this photo with Kossoff. Mount also acted with Kossoff in the British comedy film Inn for Trouble (CM Pennington-Richards, 1960) which was a spin-off from The Larkins.

Mount had an extensive television, film and stage career with film credits including Hotel Paradiso (Peter Glenville,1966) with Alec Guinness and Gina Lollobrigida, and Oliver! (Carol Reed, 1968) with Oliver Reed and Harry Secombe. Her stage credits include the title role of Brecht’s Mother Courage (1977) and Uncle Vanya (1996) with Derek Jacobi at the National Theatre before she retired soon after due to her failing eyesight.

We note that David Kossoff was the father of the blues guitarist Paul Kossoff (1950-1976) from the band Free which was responsible for the hit ‘All Right Now’ (1970). Wikipedia notes that the Rolling Stone magazine ranked Paul Kossoff 51st in their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Paul Kossoff’s health was poor due to his drug addictions and he died age 25 from a pulmonary embolism. After his death his father, David Kossoff, spent the rest of his life campaigning fervently against drugs and toured schools with his one-man stage show, The Late Great Paul, about his son’s death and the effect that it had on him and his family.

University College Cork, Cork Film Festival, Liam Kennedy

Cork Film Festival Collection

University College Cork

1960s

Liam Kennedy

English, eng

Cork, Ireland

Photo

212 x 163mm