Martha Henry

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Martha Henry bigraphy, stories - Film

Martha Henry : biography

February 17, 1938 –

Martha Henry, (born February 17, 1938, Detroit, Michigan) is a Canadian stage, film, and television actress, who is best known for her appearances at the Stratford Festival.

Background

Martha Henry grew up in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills and attended Kingswood School (today Cranbrook Kingswood School).

Artistic director and awards

She was Artistic Director of the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario from 1988 to 1994. In 1993 she traveled to Guyana, South America where she starred in Darrell Wasyk’s film Mustard Bath, winning a Genie Award for Best Supporting Actress. She returned to the Stratford stage to play Mary Tyrone in the widely respected 1994 and 1995 production of Long Day’s Journey into Night. She won a Best Actress Genie award for the 1996 film version that followed.http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9C03E3DE123AF93AA35755C0A962958260

In February 2007, she was appointed Director of Stratford’s Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre Training.http://www.stratfordfestival.ca/about/pdf/NR042007.pdf

She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1981, and promoted to Companion in 1990.

Television roles

Notable television roles include the Prime Minister’s mother in the Paul Gross miniseries H20 and the owner of the Chateau Rousseau in Ken Finkleman’s At the Hotel. In 1994, she starred in the TV film And Then There was One.

Videos

Leading actress at Stratford

She was an early graduate from the National Theatre School in Montreal, and became a leading actress at the Stratford Festival, appearing in leading roles from the late 1960s until the early 1980s. During these years she won acclaim in several roles including Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1969), Isabella in Measure for Measure (1976), Olga in Three Sisters (1976), and Paulina in The Winter’s Tale (1978).

She and a team of three other directors (Urjo Kareda, Pam Brighton, and Peter Moss) were hired to lead Stratford’s 1981 season after the resignation of Robin Phillips. The team was dismissed a few months later causing Henry and some other Stratford veterans to work away from the Festival for several years.Martin Knelman, A Stratford Tempest. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1982, 240 p. ISBN 0-7710-4542-5