As we continue our series on the stars of Glenroe, the actor and comedian chats to Seán Creedon about his life and career.

 

Mario Rosenstock is now a regular on television with his Gift Grub shows, but back in 1991 he made headlines when he threw a punch at Miley Byrne (Mick Lally) in Glenroe. The reason for that punch was that Miley had that controversial ‘roll in the hay’ with Dr. Hanlon’s (Mario) girlfriend Fidelma Kelly (Eunice McMenamin).

At that time Mario was studying at Trinity College where he began his acting career with the Trinity Players. He got the role of a very young Dr. Hanlon because when Glenroe writer Wesley Burrowes suffered a heart attack at his own home and his wife called a doctor, Burrowes said something like ‘‘keep that child away from me.’’

So when Mario got the role of the young doctor, Wesley worked in a story of a young doctor attending Dick Moran (Emmet Bergin) when Dick had a mild heart attack in one of the episodes. Wesley got Emmet to say much the same line to Mary McDermott that he had used about ten years earlier when that young doctor arrived at his own house.

One of Mario’s first Glenroe scenes involved him driving a car into a local garage where he meets Fidelma Kelly (Eunice McMenamin) and her friend. He gets out of the car, there is a bit of ‘small talk’ and then Mario asks Fidelma out on a date. The only problem was that Mario couldn’t drive and the production team had to use an RTÉ technician to drive the car.
Mario was wearing a white gabardine coat and when his friends watched the episode they started to ring him and slag him about how his hands were clearly visible inside the raincoat. Lucky there was no WhatsApp back then.

He got over the gabardine coat issue, but 36 years later Mario still cannot drive a car, and will be taking his driving test this month. He said, ‘‘I have had 16 lessons, but never got round to doing the test.’’ I reckon the lucky tester will have a fun day.

Later Dr. Hanlon ‘took to the drink’ and Mario says he was often seen opening a bottle of vodka just before the credits rolled. Then the following week’s opening sequence showed the doctor slouched on the couch covered in pizza boxes. ‘‘That’s how RTÉ showed people that somebody was drunk,’’ said Mario.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own