Fiona Reid

Fiona Reid

Fiona Reid, actress (born at Whitstable, Kent, Eng 1951). Fiona Reid is the daughter of a British military doctor; the family lived in Germany, Africa and the US before coming to Canada in 1964. She was educated at Toronto's Lawrence Park Collegiate and studied theatre at McGill University in Montréal (BA 1972) and the Banff Centre in Alberta. She achieved national prominence in 1975 when she starred as Cathy King opposite Al WAXMAN in the CBC-TV comedy King of Kensington during its first 3 seasons.

Although she made her STRATFORD FESTIVAL debut in 1977 in a production of All's Well That Ends Well, it was Fiona Reid's 10 seasons at the SHAW FESTIVAL that cemented her reputation as an adroit, elegant and versatile stage performer, often working in partnership with the festival's then artistic director, Christopher NEWTON. She starred in a series of memorable Noël Coward productions at that festival, including Private Lives (1983), Cavalcade (1985, 1995), Present Laughter (1990) and Hay Fever (2002); she also performed a number of dramatic roles with distinction, including Lady Utterwood in Shaw's Heartbreak House (1985), the title role in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler (1991), Madame Arkadina in Chekhov's The Seagull (1997), and Mrs. Erlynne in Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan (1998).

Fiona Reid received her first DORA AWARD for best actress in 1993, after starring as Julia in Coward's Fallen Angels at Toronto's St. Lawrence Centre; her second Dora came 2 years later for her work in Six Degrees of Separation (CANADIAN STAGE.) She received Vancouver's JESSIE AWARD for best actress in 2005, when she starred in Humble Boy at the VANCOUVER PLAYHOUSE.

During her long and varied stage career, she has essayed some of the leading female roles in the canon, both classical and modern. They include Lady Bracknell in Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest (the GRAND THEATRE, London, 1999), Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire (SOULPEPPER, 1999), Mrs. Lovett in the Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd (Canadian Stage, 2003), Martha in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (NEPTUNE THEATRE, Halifax, 2006), and Ruth in Blithe Spirit (Soulpepper, 2007).

Fiona Reid returned to the Stratford Festival in 2005 in the lauded production of Tennessee Williams's Orpheus Descending. She starred in Albee's A Delicate Balance there in 2007, and also appeared in the musical The Music Man in the 2008 season.

Other work includes Doubt (Neptune Theatre, 2009), Amanda in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie (2010) and Violet in August: Osage County (2011), both at the CITADEL THEATRE in Edmonton.

A busy and successful TV and movie actress, Fiona Reid's many credits include CBC-TV's This is Wonderland, for which she received a GEMINI AWARD nomination, and the movies Switching Channels (1988), Bogus (1996), My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) and The Time Traveler's Wife (2009).

Fiona Reid is a recipient of the Toronto Life Women of Distinction Award. She holds an honorary doctorate from Bishop's University and became a member of the ORDER OF CANADA in 2006. She received the 2011 Award of Excellence from ACTRA Toronto.