Sydney Sturgess
Sydney Sturgess was a Canadian actress (March 5, 1915 - September 30, 1999). She is best known for her work with the Shaw Festival and the Stratford Festival of Canada. Primarily a stage actress in Canada, England and the USA, she occasionally worked in television and film.
She was born in Ipoh, Malaysia and was the eldest of four children; two brothers and a sister. She carried a distinguished Canadian ancestry - her great-grandfather was Edward Palmer Q.C. of Prince Edward Island, who was also one of the Fathers of Confederation. Sydney's father was a civil engineer and was assigned to remote countries around the world to build bridges, so the family traveled frequently.
Her teenage years were spent for the most part at St. Stephen's boarding school in Folkestone, Kent, England. She received her dramatic training in England, as well, at the London College of Music where she received an A.L.C.M. in elocution. After graduation, she joined the Arthur Brough Players in Folkestone, first as a student and then later as an actress. She acted in various English repertory companies before meeting Barry Morse in Peterborough on January 3, 1939. Barry and Sydney were married on March 26, 1939. As a result of her work in repertory, both prior to and following her marriage, she gained broad experience as an actress through her work in literally hundreds of stage productions throughout the 1930s and 1940s.
Sydney's stage credits span more than fifty years and include London West End productions with such personalities as Dame Marie Tempest and A.E. Matthews in The First Mrs. Fraser, and later in her career on Broadway opposite Alec McCowen and Barry Morse in Hadrian VII. Their two children, Hayward Morse and Melanie Morse MacQuarrie, were born in 1947 and 1945, respectively. The family emigrated to Canada in 1951, where Sydney enjoyed several successful seasons of theatre at the Montreal Mountain Playhouse, as well as radio work and teaching, until moving to Toronto with the advent of television is 1953.
Her performances ranged the gamut, from acting in Jupiter Theatre's production of Relative Values, The Potting Shed at the Crest Theatre, and with the Canadian Players in Romeo and Juliet and Pygmalion. She also played in George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman, as 'Mrs. Darling' in Peter Pan and played in more productions of Charley's Aunt than perhaps any other actress! In 1958 she wrote and produced her own radio series for the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) called Poet's Corner. She also appeared on television as Catherine de Medici in Patrick Watson's series, Witness To Yesterday, and in the title role of George Bernard Shaw's Catherine The Great. As well, she starred as the Countess of Brocklehurst in the Shaw Festival production of The Admirable Crighton, appeared in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg at the Manitoba Theatre Center, and played 'Mrs. Higgins' in another run of Shaw's Pygmalion at the Nottingham Playhouse in England.
Sydney was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1985 and lived bravely with her illness for over fourteen years, passing away tranquilly in her sleep following a visit from her husband, Barry Morse.