Since the 1960s, Sean O’Casey’s own life has repeatedly been a source of fascination for dramatists, and there have been a number of dramatic reconstructions of his life, often based on his own autobiographical writings. The best-known of these dramatisations was the 1965 MGM film, Young Cassidy, directed by John Ford and Jack Cardiff. This chapter examines this Hollywood version of O’Casey’s life and discusses a number of alternative biographical dramatisations. These dramatisations include the popular ABC television series Young Indiana Jones in 1992; Hal Prince’s 1992 play about O’Casey’s life, Grandchild of Kings; and Colm Tóibín’s 2004 play Beauty in a Broken Place (2004).

In March 1926, the USA saw its first production of an O’Casey play, when a version of Juno and the Paycock appeared at the Mayfair Theater in New York. The text was praised by two of the twentieth century’s most influential theatre reviewers, George Jean Nathan and Brooks Atkinson, who became major American supporters of O’Casey and his work. Their efforts were bolstered by the enthusiasm for O’Casey shown by the American director Paul Shyre. This chapter traces the development of O’Casey’s reputation in the USA, and examines a range of onstage versions of O’Casey’s plays in America, ranging from the introductory work of the 1920s to the 2019 O’Casey season at the Irish Repertory Theater in New York.

Chapter Thirteen examines Rogers’ emergence in the 1930s as one of Hollywood’s most popular movie stars. The development of "talkie" films provided an opportunity for showcasing perhaps the most popular person in America in every facet of his talent: folksy appearance, verbal dexterity, homespun wit, unpretentious but shrewd sensibility. Fox Films signed him to a contract, and from 1929 to 1935 he starred in a series of popular films that combined his trademark humor with common-man characters struggling with, and overcoming, pressing trials and challenges. These populist films often touted the virtues of rural and small-town life, hard work, plain-spoken morality, and community loyalty. Rogers made a trio of such films with famed director John Ford. The humorist became such a popular movie star and celebrity that he was judged to be Hollywood’s top box office attraction in 1934. Rogers’ success as a "talkie" movie star provided the capstone of his career and cemented his status as an American folk hero.

Even though Cormac McCarthy’s position in relation to the Western genre is subversive, working against a genre still requires thorough familiarity with the conventions of that genre. Two of McCarthy’s Western novels, namely Cities of the Plain (1998) and No Country for Old Men (2005), were originally written as screenplays, placing his writing within the context of the cinematic Western. Given McCarthy’s interest in both the genre and medium of Western films, an investigation into his cinematic influences is apposite. The publication dates of McCarthy’s Western novels follow the emergence of a revisionist shift in the Western film genre. The first wave of revisionist appeared in the mid 1960s and early 1970s. Largely influenced by social and ideological disillusionment following the Vietnam War, the films were characterized by their cynical, amoral, and above all violent portrayals of the so-called Wild West. There are numerous nuances of similarity between McCarthy’s Western novels and the most influential Western films of the pre-revisionist and revisionist eras, namely, those directed by John Ford, Sergio Leone, and especially Sam Peckinpah.