William Hutt (actor)
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William Hutt CC OOnt MM |
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| Born |
William Ian DeWitt Hutt May 2, 1920 Toronto, Ontario |
| Died | June 27, 2007 (aged 87) Stratford, Ontario |
| Occupation | Actor |
William Ian DeWitt Hutt, CC OOnt MM (May 2, 1920 – June 27, 2007) was a Canadian actor of stage, television and film. Hutt's distinguished career spanned more than fifty years and won him many accolades and awards. While his base throughout his career remained at the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario, he appeared on the stage in London, New York and across Canada.
Hutt was born in Toronto, Ontario, the second of three children. A graduate of Toronto's illustrious Vaughan Road Collegiate Institute (now Vaughan Road Academy), he served five years as a medic during World War II, receiving a Military Medal for "bravery in the field". After the war, he received his BA in 1948 from Trinity College at the University of Toronto, and subsequently joined the Stratford Festival of Canada for its first season in 1953.
About his early life, theatre director Richard Nielsen said, "As a young man, he was openly gay at a time when being openly gay was a very dangerous identity. He shunned violence, but he volunteered as a medic in the Second World War, and he later won the Military Medal for his services; and this I found most fascinating: he committed to a career in theatre when such a thing as the 'Canadian theatre' simply did not exist."
His distinguished acting career was centred on the Stratford Festival where he won great acclaim in many roles including those of King Lear (1988), James Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night (1994–1995) (a production which was subsequently filmed), and Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest (1975–1979). He played all the great Shakespearean roles—Hamlet, Lear, Falstaff, Prospero, Macbeth, and Titus Andronicus.
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