TORONTO – Two Canadian acting legends will be in the spotlight Monday night as Christopher Plummer presents a special honour to Gordon Pinsent.
Pinsent is being recognized as this year’s recipient of the Stratford Festival’s Legacy Award.
Plummer will present the honour to Pinsent at a ceremony in Toronto.
It will be a reversal of roles for the two actors and longtime friends, after Pinsent presented the Oscar winner with the festival’s inaugural Legacy award in 2011.
The 86-year-old Pinsent first joined the festival company in 1962, appearing in productions of “Macbeth,” “The Taming of the Shrew” and “The Tempest.”
He also starred in the Stratford production of “Cyrano de Bergerac” alongside Plummer, which was filmed and broadcast on U.S. TV network NBC.
Following a year at the Stratford company, the Grand Falls, N.L., native quickly amassed a number of TV roles including a lead in “The Forest Rangers,” the first series shot in colour in Canada.
Pinsent left the series in 1965 to star in the CBC drama “Quentin Durgens, M.P,” and later wrote and starred in the award-winning 1972 film “The Rowdyman” which depicted life in his native Newfoundland. He returned to Stratford in 1975 to portray the lead in “Brecht’s Trumpets and Drums.”
The acclaimed actor has nearly 150 film and TV credits, and is the subject of the new documentary “The River of My Dreams: A Portrait of Gordon Pinsent,” which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
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