John Drainie
John Drainie | |
---|---|
Born | John Robert Roy Drainie April 1, 1916 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
Died | October 30, 1966 Toronto, Ontario, Canada | (aged 50)
Nationality | Canadian |
Occupation(s) | Radio and television actor, television presenter |
Known for | The Investigator, This Hour Has Seven Days |
John Robert Roy Drainie (April 1, 1916 – October 30, 1966) was a Canadian actor and television presenter, who was called "the greatest radio actor in the world" by Orson Welles.[1]
Drainie was most famous in Canada for two long-running roles: the lead role of Jake in the radio adaptation of W. O. Mitchell's Jake and the Kid, and a popular one-man stage show in which he played humourist Stephen Leacock. As well, he played Matthew Cuthbert in the 1956 CBC film adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, the narrator in the CBC's 1952 series Sunshine Sketches, and Jake in the 1963 version of Jake and the Kid.
Drainie began his career in radio with
Drainie and Ruth Springford once appeared in a radio play by Peterson, during which Springford apparently forgot that she had one more scene, and left the studio early. Drainie reportedly improvised a monologue until the director grabbed another actress and thrust her into the scene, at which point Drainie ad libbed his way back into the script. The radio audience reportedly never realized that anything was amiss. He also worked with other notables throughout his long radio career, including Jane Mallett, Toby Robins, Barry Morse, James Doohan, and Christopher Plummer.
In 1954 he voiced an "extraordinarily lifelike imitation" of the character modelled after
In 1963 Drainie played Professor Hunter in the classic
Drainie died at the age of 50 in 1966. His widow,
Two major Canadian awards, ACTRA's John Drainie Award and the Writers' Trust of Canada's Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize, were named in Drainie's honour. He was also posthumously inducted into the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame with a Star Walk plaque on Granville Street.
References
- ISBN 0-77159918-8.
- ISSN 1913-9101. Retrieved May 17, 2013.