Linda Griffiths, the Toronto actor and playwright who died Sunday, September 21, was fierce, forthright and always ready to grow.
An accomplished playwright, she wrote Maggie And Pierre, in which she played both the ex-PM and his unruly then wife O.D. On Paradise, in its second week when we talked to her for our cover story (page 7 of the issue) and Chronic, to name just a few.
But even as she was putting a female twist on history – Age Of Arousal dealt with the social implications for women of the invention of the typewriter – or exploring outsized characters like Gwendolyn MacEwan and Wallis Simpson, she never stopped wanting to act in other people’s plays.
Though some might think she was motivated by an actor’s perpetual need to ego-trip, Griffiths wasn’t interested in the power she got from performing. She wanted to learn from other playwrights.
“Almost everything I ever think of is in my plays. Now I’m interested in tasting some of the world I haven’t been able to explore,” she said to NOW’s Alice Klein.
Just a month after our cover story ran, Griffiths starred in John Sayles’s film Lianna as a woman coming out as a lesbian. It was one of the first movies ever to be sympathetic to a woman going through that experience. Without resorting to melodrama or any other excess, Griffiths made the character very real.
And she was always ready to listen. After I saw Age Of Arousal, I ran into Griffiths on the street and told her I had a few issues with the piece.
“Let’s have coffee and talk about it,” she said, without a hint of defensiveness or edge. She wasn’t precious at all.
She was just a gifted and generous artist.
Read Glenn Sumi’s appreciation.
