Joy Coghill obit

Queen of Vancouver theatre, Joy Coghill, dead at age 90

 

She was not on the list.

Joy Coghill made her acting debut with Vancouver Little Theatre on Dec. 7, 1941, the same day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Her last gig was in 2010, when she played Emily Carr in An Interview Between Douglas Coupland and Emily Carr at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

That’s a seven-decade run at the top of the Vancouver theatre world, a storied span that saw her honoured with the Order of Canada and the Governor General’s Award for the Performing Arts.

“She was really the queen of actresses in Vancouver since the ’40s,” said Norman Young, the former chair of  Vancouver Civic Theatres. “The actress that did the big parts, (though) not in the last 20 years. She was a great director, too, and a really fine person.”

Coghill died last Friday, Jan. 21, in the palliative-care ward of St. Paul’s Hospital after suffering massive heart failure. She was 90.

Joy Dorothy Coghill was born May 13, 1926, in tiny Findlater, Sask.

“Her father was a Presbyterian minister, and he was preaching out in Saskatchewan,” said Coghill’s son, Gordon Thorne. “I think he was on his way through Findlater when the birth came. It wasn’t even where they were living at the time. After that my grandfather got MS and they returned to Scotland, where she was brought up in Glasgow.”

Her father died in 1939 and two years later Joy and her mother were among British families evacuated to Canada during the Second World War. They came to Vancouver, where her aunt lived, and Joy got into theatre at Kitsilano High School.

Her talent was evident out of the box — in 1943, she won a scholarship to UBC’s Summer School of the Theatre. A year later she won best actress in the Vancouver High School Drama Festival.

After getting her BA from UBC she went to Chicago, where she studied at the Goodman Theatre. She also linked up with fellow Vancouverite John Thorne, an acquaintance from the theatre world who became her husband, and a CBC producer.

“My dad found out she was going to Goodman and he said I’m going to Northwestern, we should look each other up,” said Gordon Thorne. “They got together a few times there and again when they got back to Vancouver.”

Back in B.C. in 1951 she became an actress and assistant artistic director at Sydney Risk’s Everyman’s Theatre. In 1953, she co-founded Canada’s first professional children’s theatre, the Holiday. She would remain its artistic director until 1966.

“I can’t tell you how good she was for theatre in British Columbia,” said Young. “She and Dorothy Somerset were two of the great (forces) in Vancouver theatre. Right after the war, they were the two that made theatre move in Vancouver, and did the best theatre.”

Filmography

Film

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1975      Shivers Mona Wheatley               

1978      Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang                Mistress Fowl   

1984      Change of Heart                Edna     

1987      Blue Monkey     Dede Wilkens    

1994      Andre    Betsy    

1998      The Sleep Room                Mrs. Olson         

1999      Double Jeopardy              Neighbor In Garden       

2000      A Day in a Life    Dorthy

Television

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1955      General Motors Theatre                Sally       Episode: "Never Say No"

1959      Studio Pacific     Alice      Episode: "Anyone for Alice"

1980, 1985          The Beachcombers          Gertie   2 episodes

1986      Nobody's Child Patient #1            Television film

1986      Red Serge            Ruby Burris         Episode: "Apron Springs"

1987      Airwolf Reverend Mother            Episode: "Flowers of the Mountain"

1987      Christmas Comes to Willow Creek             Charlotte             Television film

1989      Unsub   Mrs. Gleason      Episode: "White Bone Demon"

1991      21 Jump Street Mrs. Dixon          Episode: "Coppin' Out"

1991      Omen IV: The Awakening             Sister Francesca                Television film

1991      Street Justice     Rosemary Lyttle                Episode: "Sanctuary"

1991      My Son Johnny Anna Cortino      Television film

1993      Miracle on Interstate 880             Sister Mary

1993      Sherlock Holmes Returns              Ms. Baker

1993      Whose Child Is This? The War for Baby Jessica     Earlen

1994      Snowbound: The Jim and Jennifer Stolpa Story    Dr. Jorgenson

1994      The Commish     Mrs. Dawson      Episode: "Revenge"

1995      The X-Files          Linda Thibedeaux             Episode: "Aubrey"

1995      The Other Mother: A Moment of Truth Movie     Sister Vincent    Television film

1995      Sliders   Mrs. Ezra Tweak               Episode: "Summer of Love"

1995      My Life as a Dog               Auntie Auntie / Astrid Árnesson                6 episodes

1996      Color Me Perfect              Jennifer                Television film

1996, 1997          Poltergeist: The Legacy Elizabeth Baker / Mrs. Blake        2 episodes

1997      Viper     Mother Grace    Episode: "Echo of Murder"

1998      The Outer Limits               Jean       Episode: "The Vaccine"

1998      Stargate SG-1     Saroosh / Selmak              2 episodes

1998      The Crow: Stairway to Heaven    Laura Stansbury                Episode: "Before I Wake"

1998–2003          Da Vinci's Inquest            Portia Da Vinci   6 episodes

1999      Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy                Violet Hutchison               Episode: "Deja Vu All Over Again"

2000      The Christmas Secret      Old Woman        Television film

2002      Living with the Dead       Mrs. Ziff

2003      Betrayed              Mabel Stewart