Gordon Pinsent’s laughter is a thing of beauty – rich, full-spirited and utterly infectious. His broad devilish face is suffused with good humor as he considers the question, ‘How does it feel to become an overnight star in the United States at the age of 76?’

The veteran actor’s reply is pure Pinsent: wry and well-mannered, but not without an edge to it. ‘I played the president of the U.S. in 1969 [in Colossus: The Forbin Project]. It’s only 2007. Why, I’m on a roll!’

Pinsent’s new-found acclaim down south is due to his compelling performance as the leading man opposite Julie Christie in Away from Her, the directorial debut of Sarah Polley, and a breakout hit at both the box office and with the world’s toughest film critics.

Selected as a ‘New York Times Critic’s Pick,’ A.O. Scott hailed Pinsent as ‘a marvelously subtle actor with a rich voice and a shaggy charisma.’ The New Yorker’s David Denby praised Pinsent’s portrayal of Grant, a man with ‘a capacious gut, a fine beard, and the burnished aspect of an aging lion.’

Grant’s wife Fiona (Christie) is a patient being treated for Alzheimer’s disease who can’t remember much about her relationship with her husband. As the emotional center of the film, Pinsent is gruff yet tender, playing a baffled but wounded lover out to win back the woman of his life.

Pinsent’s performance might come as a surprise to our American neighbors, but that overdue recognition is yet another triumph in the lengthy career of a thespian who has earned the title of ‘icon’ in the Canadian entertainment industry. Still, the critical and commercial accolades in the U.S. are the proverbial feather in one’s cap in Canada. Pinsent has been ‘rehearsing’ for decades.

Born in Grand Falls, NL, Gordon Edward Pinsent has participated in all manner of entertainment – including writing and acting for stage, radio, television and film. He left his home province at age 17 and began his career on stage in Winnipeg, before moving to Toronto and Stratford.

Pinsent’s acting repertoire is impressive. In the 1960s, he created two iconic figures for TV: Sgt. Brian Scott of The Forest Rangers (30-minute drama series, 1963-66) and politician Quentin Durgens, M.P. (one-hour drama series, 1966-71). Moving into the nascent Canadian indie film scene, Pinsent wrote and acted the roles of Newfoundland rebels Will Cole (in 1972’s The Rowdyman) and John Munn in John and the Missus (1987), which he also directed. Both characters turned up in theatrical pieces and novels written by the ever-inventive Pinsent during the ’70s and ’80s. The Rowdyman evolved into a musical, which Pinsent himself performed in P.E.I.

Then, in the 1990s, when lesser thespians might have begun to think of winding down their careers, Pinsent hit new peaks, connecting again with the Canadian public through three characters created for TV.

As Sgt. Bob Fraser, he was a ghostly father, dispensing advice from beyond the grave to Paul Gross’ Constable Benton Fraser in Paul Haggis’ comedy drama series Due South, which aired on CTV in Canada and CBS in the U.S. to rave reviews and high ratings. On Steve Smith’s long-running series The Red Green Show, he played the purely comic role of Hap Shaughnessy, the chronic liar. Pinsent’s late wife Charmion King called it ‘the best stuff being written’ for him. And in Power Play, the quirky hockey drama series, Pinsent was in his element as the feisty Duff McArdle, owner of the Hamilton team constantly under the threat of extinction.

Throughout his career, Pinsent has won numerous accolades, leading up to his recent inductions into the Canadian Walk of Fame and now the Canadian Film and Television Hall of Fame. An Officer of the Order of Canada for more than 25 years, he has received lifetime achievement awards from the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, the Banff World Television Festival and the Canadian Screen Training Centre’s Summer Institute of Film and Television.

Pinsent has won Geminis for performances in Power Play, Due South and a guest appearance in Street Legal, as well as for writing the TV movie Win, Again! He won an Etrog, the precursor to the Genie, for his role in The Rowdyman and best actor Genies for John and the Missus and Klondike Fever. In 2006, Pinsent wrote, directed and played a minor role in the critically acclaimed CBC TV movie Heyday!

Two years ago, his hometown of Grand Falls renamed its arts and culture building The Gordon Pinsent Centre for the Arts. The town had already named a street after him.

Pinsent’s Newfoundland heritage permeates his personal projects, although he has led a peripatetic existence since leaving in 1947. Before he settled in Toronto in the ’60s, his personal paradox was to move a lot while talking about his roots. He served in the airborne unit of the Royal Canadian Regiment in Fort Churchill, MB and, after demobilizing, worked at odd jobs, including as a ballroom dance instructor, until he began acting in Winnipeg in 1954.

‘I wasn’t any good at manual labor,’ recalls Pinsent of those days. ‘I knew that acting was at the end of the road for me.’

Moving to Toronto, Pinsent painted portraits, notably at the downtown Jewish Dental Fraternity, while pursuing his acting career. In 1962, just when his career began to take off, he costarred with Charmion King in the Crest Theatre’s production of The Madwoman of Chaillot. They fell in love, married and remained passionately involved with each other personally and creatively until she died in January of this year.

‘It was extraordinary working with Charm,’ he remembers. ‘I’ve never seen anyone else who could so enrapture you and build your spirits. I seemed to follow a better course of living with Charm.’

Their only child, actress Leah Pinsent (see sidebar, opposite), is married to Peter Keleghan, the well-known comic who has appeared in The Newsroom, Made in Canada and, like his father-in-law, The Red Green Show. He comments, ‘I always feel that I’m like Prince Phillip. I am taller than the Pinsents and I’m surprised that anyone wants to speak to me.’ Of Gordon Pinsent, he says, ‘The letters he got after Charm died were so heartfelt from people who hadn’t even met them. They were like the First Family of Canada.’

Despite his personal loss, Pinsent seems upbeat, particularly about his acting. ‘A lovely relaxation has happened,’ he says, ‘and an ease. Perhaps others are not as lucky as me. They haven’t stayed in the business as long as I have.’

Asked to give his credo, Pinsent is forthright: ‘There’s no sense in copycatting, whether you’re in acting or writing. We’re all students of the human comedy. What better truth can there be than drawing from your own experience?’

CAPTAIN CANADA INSPIRES PAUL GROSS

By Paul Gross

Actor/writer/producer Paul Gross worked with Gordon Pinsent on three seasons of the hit TV series Due South (1994-96). In the first season, Pinsent taught Gross how to properly lace RCMP boots (Pinsent’s father was a Mountie). By season three, Pinsent’s ghostly character was haunting Gross’ writing.

‘One of the most disturbing memories of working with Captain Canada concerns a dinner he and I had prior to starting the third season of Due South. He talked at great length about how he ought to be more integrated into the plots, gathering clues, apprehending villains. I reminded him that his character was a ghost. This made no impression upon him. In fact, he went on to suggest that his character deserved an office. I asked him where he thought this office would be. In the closet of my office, was his reply. Furthermore, it should be a northern cabin – this despite the fact that my office was in Chicago. I asked him what he would do in his office. ‘Office work,’ he replied.

‘I realized he was insane and considered calling his family to arrange for him to visit a brain specialist.

‘Over the next couple of weeks, the notion of this northern office in the closet of my office in Chicago began to take root, spreading out its tentacles until I began to suspect there was something to it. Eventually, of course, it formed the spine of the last 26 episodes of Due South.

‘So, if you ever have the possibility to share a dinner with Gordon Pinsent, decline. If you accept, he will take possession of your mind.’

LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER

By Marc Glassman

We’ve all read the showbiz bios and know the cliché: actors are supposed to make the worst parents. So, how come Leah Pinsent seems so well adjusted?

‘I had a wonderful childhood,’ says Leah, a very charming and composed actress, and the only child of Gordon Pinsent and the late Charmion King. ‘We lived in a creative atmosphere. At dinners, people talked about life and, of course, the business.’ About her father, she recalls, ‘Dad was always a great storyteller. He painted pictures of me. Dad taught me how to dance and we used to sing together.’

Leah’s mother, ‘Charm,’ passed away earlier this year. ‘We were always the Three Amigos,’ she recalls. However, Leah had the rare pleasure of being able to perform with her parents. She cites the short film A Promise (2002) as being their favorite. Gordon Pinsent is renowned for his ability to inhabit a scene, allowing others to shine, while his presence is essential to the drama. Leah agrees: ‘Dad is probably a better listener on film than in real life. When he hears ‘action,’ he’s right there!”

Like her father, Leah is forthright. ‘Gordon is a stronger man than I thought he was, as recent experiences have shown. He has a survival instinct and a great inner strength.’