Montreal actor ventured into politics and fought for underdogs – The Globe and Mail

Brash, unfiltered and with a deep, infectious laugh, Sonya Biddle was at once a performer and a politician, a scion of Montreal musical royalty who loved to talk, loved even more to listen and always got people to laugh along with her, no matter what she did.

Once, while passing a collection basket at a Montreal Blues Festival fundraiser with a wealthy audience, she caught the eye of the Dalai Lama, who was in attendance, ostentatiously picked out a cheque, folded it in two and mimed sticking it down her bra.

“The Dalai Lama burst out laughing,” said Ms. Biddle’s longtime partner, Allan Patrick. “Sonya was laughing and everyone else around them began to laugh, too. She was that good, up front and unapologetically in your face.”

Walking down a street in the west end of the city with Ms. Biddle was always an adventure, too, Mr. Patrick continued, for she would stop to talk and giggle with passersby as if they were all her best friends.

“Who was that?” Mr. Patrick was wont to ask.

Often, the answer was “No idea.”

It didn’t matter, not to Ms. Biddle, who was driven throughout her life by an interest in people, full-stop. As an actress in the eighties and nineties, she took on stage roles that resonated with her sensibility, including the Black Theatre Workshop’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Before she entered politics, Ms. Biddle lobbied hard for everything from water parks for kids to getting the city to purchase a long-vacant, ornate theatre in her neighbourhood and transform it into a cultural centre for the English-speaking community.

As a fledgling local politician in the late 1990s, she fought hard to provide support for marginalized, disadvantaged communities throughout the city – a program that became known under then-mayor Pierre Bourque as Quartiers sensibles, or At Risk Neighbourhoods.

“She was really a fighter for the underdog, with passion, heart and courage,” said Mr. Patrick, whom she met more than 35 years ago when both were working in theatre. “Her kids called her the supernova because she lit up and warmed so many lives.

“Everything is going to be okay, she always insisted. You just have to believe.”

Surrounded by her family, Ms. Biddle died on Jan. 19 at the University of Montreal Hospital Centre following a bout with intestinal cancer. She was 63 years old, and joking, positive and trying to make everyone else feel better right up to the end.

Sonya Biddle was born on Dec. 31, 1958, the eldest of Charlie Biddle and Constance Marchand Biddle’s four children. Her father was a jazz bassist from Pennsylvania who moved to Quebec for the music scene after serving in a Black U.S. army regiment during the Second World War and studying music at Temple University. Her French-Canadian mother met Mr. Biddle at the hotel her father owned in Asbestos, Que.

Sonya described her childhood as “blessed,” yet not without challenges. Her father, who was involved in the founding of Biddle’s Jazz and Ribs in downtown Montreal, moved the family around a lot as he established his career, from Sainte-Thérèse to Chateauguay to Montreal. The way Mr. Patrick tells it, whenever she started at a new school, other children were fascinated by her, touching her hair and telling her she was “cute”; the next day, after they had gone home to tell their parents about the new girl, they’d come back using the N-word.

At the same time, the family’s home was filled with people and song, with talk of jazz, racism and civil rights. Young Sonya, who had two sisters and a brother, met the stars of the day, from Tom Jones to Cat Stevens and Oscar Peterson.

After attending the theatre and arts program at Dawson College in the heart of Montreal, Ms. Biddle became a familiar stage presence in her own right, and had supporting roles in a number of films, including The Bone Collector, which starred Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie.

Mr. Patrick described the two of them moving in tandem in their careers, most definitely not 9-to-5ers. “We worked as producers in music, in TV, in theatre and in comedy. We organized fundraisers and oversaw communications, following our own drumbeat so that we never had time to get bored,” he said.

When Mr. Bourque came calling before the municipal election in 1998, they were both recruited – Mr. Patrick to act as the mayor’s adviser for anglophones and Ms. Biddle to run in Notre-Dame-de Grâce (NDG) under Vision Montreal’s banner against longtime city councillor Sam Boskey. She won by 68 votes.

An attempt at a second term in 2001 ended in defeat, as did a run to become mayor in 2005 of the Côte-Des-Neiges-NDG borough. She lost to Michael Applebaum, who would later be sentenced to a year in prison and two years of probation for extorting $60,000 in bribes from real-estate developers during his tenure.

Montreal city councillor Mary Deros, who first met Ms. Biddle when they both ran for city council in 1998, never saw her friend unhappy, not even when she disagreed vehemently with a position.

“Instead, she’d always laugh and smile and try to get her way,” Ms. Deros recalled. “There were always solutions as far as Sonya was concerned, and she said it as she felt for she wasn’t a typical politician, not at all.”

Mr. Bourque, who remained close to Ms. Biddle long after both left politics, said he was inspired by how she lived her life: one day at a time, but never losing sight, not of what she wanted, but what was needed.

“I think of Sonya first and foremost, not as a politician, but as a great citizen, which is the most important thing of all.”

Along with Mr. Patrick, Ms. Biddle leaves her mother, Ms. Marchand Biddle; her sons, Charles Biddle Williams and Callum Biddle Patrick; and her siblings, Stephanie and Tracy Biddle, and Charles Biddle Jr.

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