Canadian actor Sharon Acker, who had recurring roles on series including The New Perry Mason, Texas and Executive Suite, has died.

Acker died surrounded by family on March 16 at a retirement home in Toronto, her daughter Kirsten (Kim) Everest tells Playback Daily. She was 87.

Acker racked up dozens of film and TV credits throughout her career, with other projects including the series Star Trek, Murder, She Wrote, Gunsmoke and daytime soaps The Young and the Restless and Days of Our Lives. On 1970s series The New Perry Mason, she played Della Street, the loyal secretary to the titular character.

Her film projects included the John Boorman-directed crime drama Point Blank (1967), which had a cast including Carroll O’Connor of All in the Family fame; Richard Pearce’s sci-fi drama Threshold (1981) with Canadian actor Donald Sutherland and Jeff Goldblum; Paul Almond’s Act of the Heart (1970), which also starred Sutherland; and Almond’s production of Macbeth with Sean Connery (1961).

Born April 2, 1935 in Toronto, Acker also acted on stage and fell in love with the arts early in life, according to her obituary on Legacy.com. She studied art from a young age and got her start on the stage at Ontario’s Stratford Festival as well as at CBC and in London, England, where she made her film debut in Lucky Jim (1957).

She continued to act as she returned to Toronto and raised her family, which also includes daughter Gillian Macdonald. It was CBC where Boorman spotted Acker and helped launch her career in Hollywood, said the obituary, which also noted “she continued her passion for painting and sculpting whenever she could.”

“My sister and I got to go every summer to Hollywood,” says Everest, a former longtime casting director, noting they often spent time on the Fox Studio lot. “When she wasn’t working, she had a place in Muskoka [Ontario], in Bala, a family cottage. She was a huge nature lover and an activist. She was also an amazing artist and sculptor.”

Acker retired in 1994 and returned to Canada with her husband, Peter Elkington, to live at the Muskoka cottage while spending winters in the Caribbean.

Her obituary, which did not specify a cause of death, said Acker had a “vibrant spirit” and an “ever-present gratitude.”

“May her memory serve as a reminder that life is a stage, and every day is a chance to give the performance of a lifetime,” read the obituary.

Photo courtesy of Kirsten (Kim) Everest