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Playwright and actor Linda Griffiths, who had a huge hit with her one-woman play Maggie and Pierre in 1980 and spurned the prospect of fame in America to devote herself to Canadian theatre, has died from cancer.
Griffiths co-wrote Maggie and Pierre with Paul Thompson and the play went on to tour Canada and earn headlines. She played both Pierre and Margaret Trudeau in scenes taking place from 1974 to 1980.
While preparing for the production, she enlisted the help of reporters to get into a Governor General’s ball and managed to dance with Trudeau, who was between terms as prime minister after losing the spring of 1979 election.
“We seemed to dance for a very long time,” she later wrote about the encounter, which allowed her to get an up-close impression of the man.
“He gave me his secretary’s number, and I think he did this with ladies that he liked,” she told an interviewer.
She later said in an interview for Theatre Museum Canada that she tried to play the role of Pierre respectfully, even at a time when he was reviled in parts of Western Canada.
Griffiths garnered five Dora Mavor Moore Awards through her career, winning Outstanding New Play four times for Maggie and Pierre (1980), O.D. in Paradise (1983), Jessica (1986) and Alien Creature (2000), and Outstanding Performance in a Leading Role for Maggie and Pierre (1980)
She was also a two-time winner of the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award for Jessica and Alien Creature, and a two-time nominee for the Governor General’s Award for English-language drama for The Darling Family (1991) and Alien Creature.
Agencies/Canadajournal
