Actress Kate Reid

Kate Reid, long considered one of the foremost actresses of Canadian Theatre was born Daphne Kate Reid, November 4, 1930 in London, England. She spent the first 10 years of her life in England until the death of her father, when she and her mother moved to Oakville, Ontario Canada in 1940 (International Dictionary of Theater 1). Her personal philosophy as an actress was expressed when she said that "acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion" ("Quotations by Author").

She was not known for distinguishing herself academically, calling herself "something of a party girl," yet by the time she turned 15, she had enrolled in an acting course at the Royal Conservatory of Music. There she not only impressed Robert Gill, the director of the Hart House Theatre at the University of Toronto, but she caught the attention of other local theatre directors as well, who soon invited her to join summer stock companies (International . . . 1).

Shortly afterwards, in 1948, she made her professional debut at the new Crest Theatre, Toronto's first professional repertory theater, where she became known through her role as Lizzie in The Rainmaker. Reid remained with the Crest Theatre until 1956 when she moved to London to make her debut there as Catherine Ashland in The Stepmother (International . . . 1-2).

In 1959, Kate Reid was invited to join the Stratford company, one of Canada's major theater institutions. The Stratford company began in 1953 with the founding of

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returned to Stratford to play such characters as Portia in Julius Caesar and Madame Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard, she also began branching out into other venues, becoming a "favourite of US playwrights" and playing such characters as Moyla and Celeste in Tennessee Williams' Slapstick Tragedy (1966, for which she received another Tony Award), Julia in Edward Albee's film, A Delicate Balance, Esther Franz in Arthur Miller's The Price, Big Mama in Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Henny in John Guare's Bosom's and Neglect. While all of these characters were known as "American anti-heroines," she became most well known for her portrayal of Linda Loman opposite Dustin Hoffman as Willy Loman in the 1984 production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (International . . . 2). Miller is said to have singled out this production, with Kate Reid, as the "ideal version" of his play (International . . . 2). Reid continued to travel between Toronto and New York, playing venues in Connecticut and Pennsylvania as well, playing characters who usually held "unrealized promise and inexpressible pain" (International . . . 2). It has been said that her female characters were "frank, impulsive, courageous, given to salty humour but often p

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