On 25 December 1998, the confirmed bachelor and B-movie actor forever identified with Wilde's Dorian Gray passed away in Cork, Ireland. Hurd Hatfield was the perfect Dorian Gray for Albert Lewin's 1945 film; like Wilde himself, the actor's elegant and acerbic mannerisms allowed him to ‘pass’ as an upper-class Englishman despite foreign birth. Hatfield's vaguely sadistic sexual charisma landed him this signature role, even though his dark hair and eyes contradicted Wilde's original golden-haired, blue-eyed Dorian. Although Lewin played it safe when it came to the novel's suggestive treatment of sexuality, replacing Wilde's miasma of queer influences with a mysterious Egyptian statuette and a faithful fiancée, Hatfield still suffered from the novel's ‘sinful’ atmosphere, insisting that ‘the role was a curse as well as a blessing’: ‘I have been haunted by The Picture of Dorian Gray’ (qtd in Vallance 1998: 5).

Perhaps this haunting explains why Hatfield retired from films early, preferring an obscure retirement in rural Ireland. Or perhaps his move to Ireland made the haunting complete, for when Hatfield began looking for Irish houses to buy, he settled on one fit for an Irish dandy: