Gordon Pinsent, one of Canada’s most prolific and iconic actors, has died. He was 92.
“Gordon Pinsent’s daughters Leah and Beverly, and his son Barry, would like to announce the passing of their father peacefully in sleep today with his family at his side,” said a note released late Saturday, written on behalf of Pinsent’s family by his son-in-law, actor Peter Keleghan.
“Gordon passionately loved this country and its people, purpose, and culture to his last breath.”
The Grand Falls, N.L., native and Canadian household name had a storied acting career spanning dozens of films and TV projects over six decades, including Due South, The Red Green Show, Babar and the Adventures of Badou, The Grand Seduction and The Shipping News.
Focusing on CBC programs alone, one could add The Forest Rangers, Quentin Durgens, M.P., the original Street Legal and Republic of Doyle, among others.
In the U.S., where he lived in Los Angeles for six years, it was such TV series and movies as It Takes A Thief, Silence of the North, Young Prosecutors, Banacek, and the feature film The Thomas Crown Affair.
“My whole career has depended on the happiness that I get when asked to do something,” Pinsent said in a 2010 Toronto Life interview. “Pick up the phone and say ‘yes.’ I do that a lot.”
Comedian and actor Mark Critch, a fellow Newfoundlander, said he will miss Pinsent as a mentor, friend, hero and “giant colossus of Canadian entertainment.”
Actors in Canada are following “on a path that [Pinsent] cut through a forest,” Critch said.
My pal Gordon Pinsent passed. I saw him a few weeks ago, his twinkle as bright as ever. I looked up to him as the Rowdyman but loved him as Porky Pinsent from Grand Falls. He cut the path the rest of us travelled. A household name based on Canadian work. The best there ever was <a href=”https://t.co/1s9yoE9Wml”>pic.twitter.com/1s9yoE9Wml</a>
Born on July 12, 1930, Pinsent was the youngest of six children born to Stephen Pinsent, a paper mill worker and cobbler, and his wife, Flossie.
Pinsent said he was a shy, awkward child who once suffered from rickets but found freedom in acting, starting in the 1940s at the age of 17.
In the early 1950s, Pinsent took a break from acting and joined the Canadian Army, serving for about four years. But acting was his true love.
More than 150 roles
Pinsent joined the Stratford Festival in 1962 with roles in Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest and Cyrano de Bergerac, and he returned to Stratford in the mid-’70s as a leading player.
He had more than 150 TV and movie acting credits to his name, with his Internet Movie Database resumé spanning from a 1957 TV movie to a cartoon voice in 2021.
A companion of the Order of Canada and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Pinsent also received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, the Earle Grey Award for lifetime achievement in television, and a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame.
He won every major acting prize in the country, including the Genie for best actor in 2001’s The Shipping News, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Annie Proulx.
Five years later, Pinsent won best actor Genie and ACTRA awards for his internationally recognized work in Sarah Polley’s Away From Her.
WATCH | Pinsent ‘was like the Newfoundland Pope,’ Mark Critch says:
Gordon Pinsent was the beacon of N.L. arts, says friend and actor Mark Critch
11 hours ago
Duration 9:57
Canadian acting legend Gordan Pinsent, whose award-winning career spanned six decades, has died at 92. His friend, fellow actor and comedian Mark Critch said Pinsent was thoughtful, young-spirited and deeply loved by his fans and peers.
‘Extraordinary’ performance
In the 2016 documentary about his life, The River of My Dreams — a film where a reflective, sometimes impish Pinsent speaks in eloquent paragraphs infused with his Newfoundland accent — he says his wife, the actress Charmion King, suggested he take the role, which turned out to be the high-water mark for his career.
Canadiandirector Norman Jewison said in the same doc that Pinsent’s performance in Away From Her of a man losing his wife (Julie Christie) to Alzheimer’s disease was “extraordinary.”
“It was so simple, yet so powerful and so moving,” Jewison said of Pinsent. “And I think a lot of it was because you believed him.”
Those types of kudos tickled the modest Pinsent.
“Now you see, I don’t talk that way about myself, so I was pleased — it was just terrific,” he said about similar praise at the time from English actor Daniel Day-Lewis.
WATCH | Gordon Pinsent speaks about Away From Her 16 years ago:
Gordon Pinsent on ‘Away From Her’
16 years ago
Duration 11:19
Venerable Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent talks about the critically acclaimed film Away From Her.
Amid the plaudits, Pinsent had a tragedy in his personal life as the film was being released: King, his wife of 45 years, died in January 2007 after a long struggle with emphysema.
“It was something I wasn’t necessarily drawing on except in the general sense of how anyone must feel at a certain time of life after spending so many years with a partner,” an emotional Pinsent said then.
“It’s almost impossible to grasp … how do you prepare? Where does love go? Where do you go, the leftover?”
King and Pinsent had one child together, actress Leah Pinsent. He also had two children from an earlier marriage, Barry and Beverly.
A Renaissance man
Pinsent was also a painter, a writer, a playwright and a director. Two of his Newfoundland-set novels, The Rowdyman andJohn and the Missus, were turned into feature films. Pinsent starred in the former and both directed and acted in the latter.
His memoirs, By the Way, were published in 1994.
Though he struggled with chronic pain in his later years, Pinsent remained prolific, with about 20 acting credits during the 2010s.
At age 80, he went viral on CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes by reading 16-year-old Justin Bieber’s memoir with mock gravitas.
Pinsent reads Justin Bieber’s memoir:
And at 81, he put out an album of his own poetry set to rock music by Greg Keelor of Blue Rodeo and Travis Good of The Sadies.
In 2016, he released a short film he wrote and self-funded called Martin’s Hagge, about a middle-aged writer burdened by a personified version of anxiety and depression.
He said he kept working because each new project felt like getting away with something he didn’t quite deserve.
“I ran fast before they could catch me and say, ‘No, no, acting is for silly people!'” he told CBC News in 2010.
WATCH | George Stroumboulopoulos speaks with Pinsent in 2011:
Gordon Pinsent
12 years ago
Duration 15:39
George speaks with Canadian acting great Gordon Pinsent about his life and career in the film and theatre industry.
Canadian actor R.H. Thomson, who has been almost as prolific as Pinsent, said in the 2016 documentary that artists have an enormous role in how a country’s “cloth is woven.”
“And artists like Gordon … [have] pulled that thread back and forth, as Canada’s loom has made this cloth of who we are and where we’ve been and where we’re going to,” he said.
“And that colour of Gordon Pinsent going through and through the tapestry is now inevitably part of any story of Canada for me.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government says it is taking steps to ensure tree fruit growers are compensated for past harvests after the closure of a co-operative that had served farmers for almost 90 years.
It says the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC is “redirecting” about $4 million in provincial funding that will be used to ensure co-op members receive money they are owed.
The province says the foundation will pay growers in the coming weeks and then recoup the funds at the end of the court process involving the BC Tree Fruits Cooperative that filed for creditor protection last month.
In July, the co-op, which processed, stored, packaged and sold fruit for 230 member farms, announced it was shutting down after 88 years of operation.
It says it has more than $58 million in liabilities.
The agriculture ministry says it is has also provided $100,000 to the BC Fruit Growers Association that will go toward food-safety certification that was previously done by the co-op.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Jesse Marsch issued Canada’s men’s soccer squad a challenge — get physical.
The edict came after the Canadians surprised many at this summer’s Copa America tournament, making it through to the semifinals. As his players departed for their professional clubs, the head coach wanted them thinking about continued growth.
“I challenged them to be more physically present in the matches that they played in,” Marsch said. “I’ve tried to encourage all the players to sprint more, to win more duels, to win more balls, to be more dynamic in matches.”
When Canada reconvened for a pair of friendlies last week, the coach saw some players had already heeded his call, including Vancouver Whitecaps product Ali Ahmed.
The 23-year-old midfielder started in both Canada’s 2-1 victory over the United States on Saturday and Tuesday’s 0-0 draw against Mexico.
“I’m really happy for him,” Marsch said. “I think he’s still young and still has a lot of room and potential to continue to grow.”
Playing under Marsch — who took over as head coach in May — has been a boon for the young athlete, currently in his second full season with Major League Soccer’s Whitecaps.
“Jesse has a very clear way of playing,” Ahmed said. “And I think the way we’ve been training and the way we’ve been growing as a group, it’s been helpful for me.”
The reward of getting minutes for a national team can spur a player’s growth, including Ahmed, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini.
“Of course that fuels him inside to say ‘Hey, I want to be a better player. I want to get to that stage,'” said Sartini.
Vancouver had six players — including Ahmed — away on international duty during its 0-0 draw against Dallas FC on Saturday. The absences are a good problem to have, Sartini said.
“Because we have players that are close to the national team, we have a lot of players that development is faster, better, bigger than it would have been if they hadn’t been called,” he said.
Born in Toronto, Ahmed came up through the Whitecaps’ academy system and played for Vancouver’s MLS Next Pro side before cementing his spot on the first team in 2023. He put up two goals and two assists across 22 regular-season games, and added another goal and another helper in 19 appearances this year.
Taking the next step will require the five-foot-11, 154-pound Ahmed to push himself physically, Marsch said.
“Tactically, he’s technically gifted,” the coach said. “I’ve told him he’s got to get in the gym more.
“There’s a lot of these little things where too many guys, they still look like kids and we need to help them look like men and play like men. And that’s what the high standards of the game are about.”
Marsch has quickly adjusted to recalibrating standards in his short time with Team Canada. Since taking over the squad in May, the coach said he’s learned the players are smarter and more capable than he originally thought, which forces the coach to constantly recalibrate his standards.
“That’s my job right now, to keep raising the level of the demands,” he said.
The way 40th-ranked Canada is viewed on the international stage is evolving, too.
“I think we’re changing the perception on the way we’re playing now,” he said. “I think beating the U.S. — it would have been nice to beat Mexico as well — the way we did, the way that we performed at Copa, I think teams are starting to look at us differently.
“Right now, I think we’re focused on ourselves. We’re definitely trying to be the best in CONCACAF and we have higher goals as well.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
An investigator gave the World Anti-Doping Agency a pass on its handling of the inflammatory case involving Chinese swimmers, but not without hammering away at the “curious” nature of WADA’s “silence” after examining Chinese actions that did not follow rules designed to safeguard global sports.
WADA on Thursday released the full decision from Eric Cottier, the Swiss investigator it appointed to analyze its handling of the case involving the 23 Chinese swimmers who remained eligible despite testing positive for performance enhancers in 2021.
In echoing wording from an interim report issued earlier this summer, Cottier said it was “reasonable” that WADA chose not to appeal the Chinese anti-doping agency’s explanation that the positives came from contamination.
“Taking into consideration the particularities of the case, (WADA) appears … to have acted in accordance with the rules it has itself laid out for anti-doping organizations,” Cottier wrote.
But peppered throughout his granular, 56-page analysis of the case was evidence and reminders of how WADA disregarded some of China’s violations of anti-doping protocols. Cottier concluded this happened more for the sake of expediency than to show favoritism toward the Chinese.
“In retrospect at least, the Agency’s silence is curious, in the face of a procedure that does not respect the fundamental rules, and its lack of reaction is surprising,” Cottier wrote of WADA’s lack of fealty to the world anti-doping code.
Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and one of WADA’s fiercest critics, latched onto this dynamic, saying Cottier’s information “clearly shows that China did not follow the rules, and that WADA management did nothing about it.”
One of the chief complaints over the handling of this case was that neither WADA nor the Chinese gave any public notice upon learning of the positive tests for the banned heart medication Temozolomide, known as TMZ.
The athletes also were largely kept in the dark and the burden to prove their innocence was taken up by Chinese authorities, not the athletes themselves, which runs counter to what the rulebook demands.
Despite the criticisms, WADA generally welcomed the report.
“Above all, (Cottier) reiterated that WADA showed no bias towards China and that its decision not to appeal the cases was reasonable based on the evidence,” WADA director general Olivier Niggli said. “There are however certainly lessons to be learned by WADA and others from this situation.”
Tygart said “this report validates our concerns and only raises new questions that must be answered.”
Cottier expanded on doubts WADA’s own chief scientist, Olivier Rabin, had expressed over the Chinese contamination theory — snippets of which were introduced in the interim report. Rabin was wary of the idea that “a few micrograms” of TMZ found in the kitchen at the hotel where the swimmers stayed could be enough to cause the group contamination.
“Since he was not in a position to exclude the scenario of contamination with solid evidence, he saw no other solution than to accept it, even if he continued to have doubts about the reality of contamination as described by the Chinese authorities,” Cottier wrote.
Though recommendations for changes had been expected in the report, Cottier made none, instead referring to several comments he’d made earlier in the report.
Key among them were his misgivings that a case this big was largely handled in private — a breach of custom, if not the rules themselves — both while China was investigating and after the file had been forwarded to WADA. Not until the New York Times and German broadcaster ARD reported on the positives were any details revealed.
“At the very least, the extraordinary nature of the case (23 swimmers, including top-class athletes, 28 positive tests out of 60 for a banned substance of therapeutic origin, etc.), could have led to coordinated and concerted reflection within the Agency, culminating in a formal and clearly expressed decision to take no action,” the report said.
WADA’s executive committee established a working group to address two more of Cottier’s criticisms — the first involving what he said was essentially WADA’s sloppy recordkeeping and lack of formal protocol, especially in cases this complex; and the second a need to better flesh out rules for complex cases involving group contamination.
