Jackie Burroughs

A leading figure of the Canadian theater, British-born Jackie Burroughs worked in everything from avant garde cabaret to plays by the Bard at Ontario's Stratford Shakespeare Festival. While in her youth she sometimes came off as brittle and mannered (not unlike Maggie Smith), as she aged she matured with a fearlessness that often compensated when the vehicle was beneath her talents. Burroughs began working in film in the late 1960s, but began making inroads in the 1980s as co-star of "The Grey Fox" (1982) and narrator of "The Wars" (1983). Her best known feature may have been "A Winter Tan" (1987), which she co-produced, co-directed and co-wrote in addition to playing the lead. Adapted from the letters of Maryse Holder, the film told the story of a middle-aged feminist who embarks on a hedonistic, alcohol-sodden sexual odyssey through Mexico. With the dawn of the 1990s, Burroughs found a home on the small screen as the domineering spinster novelist Hetty King in "Avonlea/Road to Avonlea" (The Disney Channel, 1990-97). She later turned up as brothel owner Mother Mucca in the miniseries "Armistead Maupin's More Tales of the City" (Showtime, 1998) and as a jogger announcing the countdown to the end of the world in Don McKellar's quirky "Last Night" (1998). The esteemed actress passed away from stomach cancer in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on Sept. 22, 2010.