Gordon Pinsent obit

Gordon Pinsent, Actor in Sarah Polley’s ‘Away From Her,’ Dies at 92

The three-time Genie Award winner also starred on 'The Red Green Show' and 'Due South' and was the voice of Babar the Elephant. 

He was not on the list.

Gordon Pinsent, the admired Canadian actor who starred opposite Julie Christie as a husband losing his wife to Alzheimer’s disease in Sarah Polley’s Away From Her, died Saturday, his family announced. He was 92.

A household name in his country, Pinsent also appeared on the big screen in Norman Jewison’s The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Lasse Hallström’s The Shipping News (2001), Michael McGowan’s Saint Ralph (2004) and Don McKellar’s The Grand Seduction (2013).

On television, he played Possum Lake resident Hap Shaughnessy, a teller of tall tales, on the Canadian comedy The Red Green Show from 1991-2004 and was Chicago-based Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant Bob Fraser on the CTV/CBS series Due South from 1994-99.

And he served as the distinctive voice of Babar the Elephant in film and TV from 1989 through 2015.

In Away From Her (2006), which marked Polley’s directorial debut — she also received an Oscar nomination for best screenplay — Pinsent played Grant Anderson, an Ontario man whose wife, Fiona (Christie), slowly loses all memory of him while becoming involved with another resident (Michael Murphy) at her nursing home.

Pinsent’s wife of 45 years, actress Charmion King, died in 2007 after a long battle with emphysema. She suggested he take the role, and he won the last of his three Genie Awards for his heartbreaking performance.

[His wife’s illness] “was something I wasn’t necessarily drawing on except in the general sense of how anyone must feel at a certain time of life after spending so many years with a partner,” he told the CBC in an interview that year.

“It’s almost impossible to grasp … how do you prepare? Where does love go? Where do you go, the leftover?”

The youngest of six children, Gordon Edward Pinsen was born on July 12, 1930, in Grand Falls, Newfoundland. His father, Stephen, was a paper mill worker.

Pinsent, who suffered from rickets as a child, began acting on the stage at 17 in Winnipeg and landed roles on CBC radio dramas before serving four years with the Canadian Army. He joined the Stratford Festival in 1962 and appeared in Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest and Cyrano de Bergerac. (He received the theater company’s inaugural lifetime achievement award in 2008.)

In 1970, he portrayed the U.S. president in the sci-fi classic Colossus: The Forbin Project, directed by Joseph Sargent, then landed a role in the cult movie Blacula two years later.

Pinsent wrote two Newfoundland-set novels, The Rowdyman and John and the Missus, that were turned into features in 1972 and 1987, respectively. He acted in both films and directed the latter.

Nominated for six Genie Awards, he also won for Klondike Fever (1980) and John and the Missus.

In 1979, he was made an officer of the Order of Canada, then promoted to Companion in 1998. At age 80, he found a legion of new fans after he read Justin Bieber’s memoir with great sincerity on the CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Pinsent published memoirs in 1994 and 2012 and was the subject of a 2016 documentary, The River of My Dreams.

Survivors include his children, Leah (and her husband, Peter Keleghan, both actors), Beverly and Barry (also an actor).

“Gordon passionately loved [his] country and its people, purpose and culture to his last breath,” they said in a statement.

 Pinsent, the youngest of six children, was born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland (present-day Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada). His mother, Florence "Flossie" (née Cooper), was originally from Clifton, Newfoundland and his father, Stephen Arthur Pinsent, was a papermill worker and cobbler originally from Dildo, Newfoundland. His mother was "quiet spoken" and a religious Anglican; the family was descended from immigrants from Kent and Devon in England. He was a self-described "awkward child" who suffered from rickets.

Pinsent began acting on stage in the 1940s at the age of 17. He soon took on roles in radio drama on the CBC, and later moved into television and film as well. In the early 1950s, he took a break from acting and joined the Canadian Army, serving for approximately four years as a private in The Royal Canadian Regiment.

Filmography

 

Movies

1964: Lydia as Thomas

1966: Don't Forget to Wipe the Blood Off

1968: The Thomas Crown Affair as Jamie McDonald

1970: Colossus: The Forbin Project as The President

1971: Chandler as John Melchior

1972: The Rowdyman as Will Cole

1972: Blacula as Lt. Jack Peters

1974: Newman's Law as Jack Eastman

1974: Only God Knows as Father John Hagan

1975: The Heatwave Lasted Four Days as Cliff Reynolds

1976: Blackwood as Narrator

1977: Who Has Seen the Wind as Gerald O'Connal

1978: Drága kisfiam as Fiú

1980: Klondike Fever as Swiftwater Bill

1981: The Devil at Your Heels as narrator

1981: Silence of the North as John Frederickson

1987: John and the Missus as John Munn

1989: Babar: The Movie as King Babar (voice)

1990: Blood Clan as Judge William McKay

1997: Pippi Longstocking as Capt. Longstocking (voice)

1997: Pale Saints as Gus

1999: The Old Man and the Sea (Short) as Old Man (voice)

2001: The Shipping News as Billy Pretty

2002: A Promise (Short)

2003: Nothing as Man In Suit

2003: Snow on the Skeleton Key (Short) as Winslow Icarus

2004: The Good Shepherd as Cardinal Ledesna

2004: Saint Ralph as Father Fitzpatrick

2006: Away from Her as Grant Anderson

2006: The Sparky Book (Short) as Goldfish

2008: Eating Buccaneers as Hermit Trapper

2009: The Spine (Short) (voice)

2009: At Home by Myself...With You as Narrator (voice)

2012: Flight of the Butterflies

2013: Sex After Kids as Dr. Keaton

2013: The Grand Seduction as Simon

2013: Big News from Grand Rock as Stan

2014: Danny (cameo)

2016: Two Lovers and a Bear as Bear's Voice

2017: The River of My Dreams (Documentary)

 

Television series

1963: Scarlett Hill as David Black

1963-1965: The Forest Rangers as Sergeant Brian Scott

1968: Quentin Durgens, M.P. as Quentin Durgens

1969: Adventures in Rainbow Country as Father Bob Coburn

1970: Hogan's Heroes as Capt. Steiner

1972: Banacek as John Weymouth

1973: Cannon as Phillip Trask

1974: The Play's The Thing as Host

1978-1979: A Gift to Last as Sgt. Edgar Sturgess

1980: Up at Ours

1983: Ready for Slaughter

1984: Seeing Things as Englander

1989-1991: Babar as King Babar

1989-1993: Street Legal as Harold Vickers

1989: Friday the 13th: The Series as Desmond Williams

1991-2006: The Red Green Show as Hap Shaughnessy

1994-1999: Due South as Robert Fraser (recurring)

1997-2000: Wind at My Back as Leo McGinty

1998-2003: Made in Canada as Myron Kingswell / Walter Franklin, Sr.

1998-2000: Power Play as Duff McArdle

2004: H2O: The Last Prime Minister as Michael Cameron

2009: Corner Gas as Corky Dillems

2009: The listener as Franck

2010: The Pillars of the Earth as Archbishop

2010-2012: Republic of Doyle as Maurice Becker (recurring)

2010-2015: Babar and the Adventures of Badou as King Babar

2013: Satisfaction as Dr Faskin

2019: Private Eyes as Nevin Ainslie

Television specials and movies

1970: Quarantined as Dr. Bud Bedford

1973: Incident on a Dark Street as Joe - Mayor

1975: Horse Latitudes as Donald Crowhurst

1979: The Suicide's Wife as Allan Crane

1981: Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper as Ambassador Ken Taylor

1982: The Life and Times of Edwin Alonzo Boyd as Edwin Alonzo Boyd

1984: A Case of Libel as Dennis Corcoran

1984: And Miles to Go as Jack Morrissey

1984: Sam Hughes's War as Sir Sam Hughes

1988: Two Men

1992: In the Eyes of the Stranger as Lt. Ted Burk

1993: Bonds of Love as Leon

1995: A Vow to Kill as Frank Waring

1996: A Holiday for Love as Cal Marsdon

1999: Win, Again! as Win Morrissey

2000: Jewel On The Hill as Narrator

2001: Blind Terror as Martin Howell

2002: The New Beachcombers as Host

2003: Hemingway vs Callaghan as Morley Callaghan

2003: Fallen Angel as Warren Wentworth

2006: Yours, Al as Al Purdy

2012: Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town as Elder Stephen Leacock

2015: Pirate's Passage as Harry Freelove, The Barber (voice)

 

Discography

 

1968: Roots

1997: Harbour of Dreams: A Tribute to Newfoundland (with Dave Nicol)

2002: At the Rim of the Carol-Singing Sea (with The Newfoundland Symphony Youth Choir)

2010: Down and Out in Upalong (with Travis Good and Greg Keelor)