'She was a star in every sense of the word': Winnipeg actor Evelyne Anderson dead at 89

Evelyne Anderson, who left a blossoming theatre career in England to return to Winnipeg and Rainbow Stage, has died at age 89.

"She was a star in every sense of the word," Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre artistic director Steven Schipper said Friday. "She had all the craft and technique and stage presence of a star, but she always behaved like a team player."

Anderson, who died Wednesday, is remembered as a consummate professional actor and singer, but also a supportive co-worker and dedicated mother. Her married name was Lamont, but she continued to use Anderson as her professional name.

"She was really a fabulous mother and family member, and we're very, very proud of her," her son Andrew Lamont said. "Nobody else had a mother who was an actress."

The Winnipeg Theatre Awards were renamed the Evies in her honour last year, an honour that "blew us all away," Lamont said. The renaming happened a year after Anderson was given the awards' first Lifetime Achievement Award.

Her career took her to stages around the city, including performances at Prairie Theatre Exchange and record-setting numbers of appearances at both the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre (52 productions) and Rainbow Stage (25).

Anderson was born into one of Winnipeg's leading musical families in 1929; her early music teacher was her father, William Anderson, a leading composer and conductor in Winnipeg in the first half of the 20th century.

She went to England to study voice in the mid-1950s, landing a role in a production with famous British actor Peter O'Toole in London's West End, before returning to Winnipeg for family reasons in 1958.

She'd already starred in Rainbow Stage's first full-length musical production, Brigadoon, in 1955. She went on to perform in 25 shows at the outdoor theatre, taking the lead in musicals, including The King and I, My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music.

Schipper said it's an honour to speak about Anderson, who was not only an exemplary artist, but also an outstanding human being.

"She was so generous to her fellow actors, both on stage and off. She was an incredible mother and wife," Schipper said. "She really set the bar as high as anyone for having it all, as they say — for being both a consummate professional actor and a simply beautiful, decent human being."

Her ability was noted outside Winnipeg, and she travelled to take roles across Canada and the United States on occasion, but most of her career was spent in her home city.

Founding Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre artistic director John Hirsch offered her work at the renowned Stratford Festival in Ontario in the 1980s, but she turned it down so she could stay in Winnipeg with her family, Schipper said.

She did spend a season at the Shaw Festival in Niagara on the Lake in 1995.

Schipper directed her in some RMTC appearances and said her ability to take direction and her versatility were extraordinary.

"She literally could play it any way you liked and play it so beautifully."

She also left a legacy for other Winnipeg actors as a passionate advocate for local performers, he said.

"Clearly, she had seen enough of casting policies that didn't give local actors their due, and both privately and wonderfully publicly, Evie went straight to the heart of why it was so essential to nurture the Winnipeg acting community."

She also had a quieter impact on the backstage behaviour of Winnipeg actors, Schipper said.

"In the rehearsal hall, actors would learn her approach — her discipline and, again, her generosity," he said.

"Evie was never one to upstage anyone — quite the opposite. She made her fellow actors look great, and when actors see someone of Evie's stature working in that manner, they naturally try to emulate it."