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Campion, Joyce

Joyce Campion
Joyce Campion

Character actor, born in Ballycastle, Northern Ireland, in 1923, died September 3, 2014 in Stratford Ontario. Joyce Campion had a long, esteemed career in the theatre which began in Ireland and England and continued in Canada and the US. She acted for ten seasons at the Shaw Festival and nineteen seasons at the Stratford Festival.

After touring with the Canadian Players in 1963 and 1964, Campion first joined the Stratford Festival in 1968. Her many memorable roles at Stratford include Hannah Bauman in Quiet in the Land, Mrs. Higgins in My Fair Lady, the Duchess of York in Richard II, and Elizabeth Rex (2000) by Timothy Findley (which she reprised in the 2004 film). She also performed in King Lear, Sweet Bird of Youth, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, The Duchess of Malfi, Little Women (1997), Richard III and Filumena.

She acted in theatres across Canada, including: Canadian Stage; Theatre Passe Muraille; Tarragon Theatre; Manitoba Theatre Centre (notably in the world premiere of Maureen Hunter's Transit of Venus), and Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane (February, 2000); Citadel Theatre; Centaur Theatre; Alberta Theatre Projects; Theatre New Brunswick; and the River Run Centre's (Guelph, Ontario) production of Morris Panych's Vigil (November, 2000). Her last performance, at the age of 86, was at the Stratford Festival as Anfisa in Chekhov's Three Sisters.

Campion also performed in Ireland, England and the US, and frequently in radio, television and film.

She received a Dora Mavor Moore Award for her performance in Michel Tremblay's Bonjour, la, bonjour.

Joyce Campion modestly considered herself a working actor and was always generous to her colleagues.

Source: Obituary: theStar.com

Profile by Gaetan Charlebois and Anne Nothof

Last updated 2017-04-24