Douglas Campbell (actor)
Douglas Campbell | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 6 October 2009 | (aged 87)
Nationality | British, Canadian |
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 1941–2000 |
Spouse(s) |
|
Children | 6, including Benedict and Torquil |
Douglas Campbell, CM (11 June 1922 – 6 October 2009) was a Canadian-based stage actor. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland.
Acting career
Campbell's interest in the theatre began at London's Old Vic Theatre at age 17, where working as a stage hand he saw Tyrone Guthrie's production of King John. He first performed in the 1941 Old Vic touring productions of Medea and Jacob's Ladder.
He was invited to Canada in 1953 by Guthrie, who had just been appointed the first artistic director of the fledgling Stratford Festival of Canada. Campbell played Hastings in the opening production of Richard III in 1953, and King Oedipus in the stage and screen production of Oedipus Rex in 1954. He appeared many times at Stratford in the fifty years that followed, drawing great acclaim in the role of Othello in 1959, and in many appearances as Falstaff.
Campbell founded the Canadian Players in 1954, and was artistic director at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis from 1966 to 1967. He was awarded the Order of Canada on 17 April 1997. Campbell received a Governor General's Performing Arts Award, Canada's highest honour in the performing arts, in 2003.
Personal life
In 1947, Campbell married Ann Casson, actress and daughter of Sir Lewis Casson and Dame Sybil Thorndike. His children from that marriage are Dirk Campbell, television director; Teresa Padden who played Cordelia to his first King Lear, Tom Campbell, painter; Benedict Campbell, actor. In the late 1960s, Campbell developed a relationship with Moira Wylie, an actress and director, with whom his children Beatrice and Torquil Campbell were born. Beatrice Campbell is a stage manager at the Shaw Festival while Torquil Campbell is an actor and lead singer/songwriter of the indie rock band Stars. Casson, whom Campbell never divorced, died in 1990. He and Wylie married in 1993.
Campbell died at Hôtel Dieu hospital in Montreal, Quebec from complications of diabetes and congestive heart disease on 6 October 2009.
Filmography
Movies
- 1957: Oedipus Rex – Oedipus
- 1965: When Tomorrow Dies – Doug James
- 1972: A Fan's Notes – Paddy the Duke
- 1979: Lost and Found – British Professor
- 1980: Double Negative – Crichett, Sr.
- 1980: Nothing Personal – The Walker
- 1982: If You Could See What I Hear – Porky Sullivan
- 1983: Strange Brew – Henry Green
- 1985: Perfect – (uncredited)
- 1985: Charlie Grant's War
- 1990: I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990) – Mr. Bancroft
- 2000: Once Upon a Christmas – Santa Claus (final film role)
Television series
- 1979–1982: The Great Detective (35 episodes) – Inspector Cameron
- 1981: You've Come a Long Way, Katie
- 1998: Due South (Appearance in the episodes 3.12 and 3.13 "Mountie on the Bounty parts 1 and 2") – Capt. Ed Smithers
- 2000: Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story (miniseries) – Dr. Powell
- 1922 births
- 2009 deaths
- Deaths from diabetes
- 20th-century British male actors
- Male actors from Montreal
- Canadian male film actors
- Canadian male stage actors
- Canadian male television actors
- Members of the Order of Canada
- Naturalized citizens of Canada
- Male actors from Glasgow
- Governor General's Performing Arts Award winners
- British emigrants to Canada
- Disease-related deaths in Quebec