Great Canadians
by cookemd | created - 28 Dec 2011 | updated - 08 Dec 2014 | PublicReally great people.
1. Lorne Greene
Actor | Bonanza
Lorne Greene was born Lyon Himan "Chaim" Green on February 12, 1915, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He began acting while attending Canada's Queen's University, and after graduation got a job in radio broadcasting. His rich, deep, authoritarian voice quickly propelled him to prominence as Canada's top...
2. Rich Little
Actor | Christmas Carol
Born in Canada, Rich Little got his start just like almost every other comic of his time - night clubs. he was a very popular comic in these clubs, but if there was one thing Rich was best known for, it was impersonations. He studied the voices of many stars his whole life, stars like James Stewart...
3. Monty Hall
Producer | Let's Make a Deal
Monty Hall was born Maurice Halperin on August 25, 1921 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Manitoba in 1945. He's the father of Tony Award winner Joanna Gleason, television writer/director Sharon Hall, and Emmy Award winner ...
4. Mack Sennett
Producer | A Small Town Idol
Mack Sennett was born Michael Sinnott on January 17, 1880 in Danville, Quebec, Canada, to Irish immigrant farmers. When he was 17, his parents moved the family to East Berlin, Connecticut, and he became a laborer at American Iron Works, a job he continued when they moved to Northampton, ...
5. John Candy
Actor | Planes, Trains & Automobiles
Candy was one of Canada's greatest and funniest character actors. His well-known role as the big hearted buffoon earned him classics in Uncle Buck (1989) and Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987). His career has handed him some dry spells but Candy always rebounded.
Born in Newmarket, Ontario, in ...
6. Margot Kidder
Actress | Superman
Margot Kidder was born Margaret Ruth Kidder in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, to Jocelyn Mary "Jill" (Wilson), a history teacher from British Columbia, and Kendall Kidder, a New Mexico-born mining engineer and explosives expert. Margot was a delightful child who took pride in ...
7. Anne Murray
Soundtrack | Zodiac
Anne Murray is a major recording star. She has won numerous Grammy Awards, American Music Awards, as well as a number of Juno Awards in her native Canada. Anne lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband and two children. She has sold over 24 million records. She is known for such hits as "Snowbird",...
8. Martin Short
Actor | Innerspace
Martin Hayter Short OC is a Canadian-American actor, comedian, singer, and writer. He has received various awards including two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award. In 2019 Short became an Officer of the Order of Canada, and has received Medals from Queen Elizabeth II, including in 2002 the ...
9. James Doohan
Actor | Star Trek
Best known as Scotty in Star Trek he was educated at High School in Sarnia, Ontario, where he acted in school productions.
When WWII began he joined the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery eventually obtaining the rank of Captain. He was wounded on D-Day, suffering severe damage to his right middle...
10. William Shatner
Actor | Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
William Shatner has notched up an impressive 70-plus years in front of the camera, displaying heady comedic talent and being instantly recognizable to several generations of cult television fans as the square-jawed Captain James T. Kirk, commander of the starship U.S.S. Enterprise.
Shatner was born ...
11. Tommy Chong
Actor | Up in Smoke
Tommy Chong was born on May 24, 1938 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He is an actor and writer, known for Up in Smoke (1978), Zootopia (2016) and Cheech and Chong's Next Movie (1980). He has been married to Shelby Chong since 1975. They have four children. He was previously married to Maxine Sneed.
12. Lorne Michaels
Producer | Saturday Night Live
Lorne Michaels was born on November 17, 1944 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is a producer and writer, known for Saturday Night Live (1975), 30 Rock (2006) and The Kids in the Hall (1988). He has been married to Alice Barry since 1991. They have three children. He was previously married to Susan ...
13. Leslie Nielsen
Actor | Airplane!
Leslie William Nielsen was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, and raised in Tulita (formerly Fort Norman), Northwest Territories. His mother, Mabel Elizabeth (Davies), was Welsh. His father, Ingvard Eversen Nielsen, was a Danish-born Mountie and a strict disciplinarian. Leslie studied at the Academy of ...
14. Dave Thomas
Writer | The Blacklist
Born in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, Dave was the eldest son of John and Moreen Thomas. John Thomas (deceased) was a PHD in Philosophy (Duke), noted medical ethicist, head of Philosophy Department at McMaster University, and author of several books including: "Matters of Life and Death," "Well ...
15. Fay Wray
Actress | King Kong
Canadian-born Fay Wray was brought up in Los Angeles and entered films at an early age. She was barely in her teens when she started working as an extra. She began her career as a heroine in westerns at Universal during the silent era. In 1926 the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers ...
16. Jack L. Warner
Producer | My Fair Lady
With his brothers Harry M. Warner, Albert Warner, and Sam Warner, he founded Warner Bros. Pictures Inc. in 1923. They released the first motion picture with synchronized sound, The Jazz Singer (1927) with Al Jolson. In the 1930s they gave employment to a parade of stars, including Bette Davis, ...
17. Donald Sutherland
Actor | The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
The towering presence of Canadian actor Donald Sutherland is often noticed, as are his legendary contributions to cinema. He has appeared in almost 200 different shows and films. He is also the father of renowned actor Kiefer Sutherland, among others.
Donald McNichol Sutherland was born in Saint ...
18. David Steinberg
Director | Curb Your Enthusiasm
Comedian David Steinberg, born in 1942, grew up in Winnipeg, Canada. He left home to attend the University of Chicago. The family moved to Chicago when he was a teen. It was there that he saw a performance by the Second City Chicago Troupe and it changed the course of his life. With another student...
19. Norma Shearer
Actress | The Divorcee
She won a beauty contest at age fourteen. In 1920 her mother, Edith Shearer, took Norma and her sister Athole Shearer (Mrs. Howard Hawks) to New York. Ziegfeld rejected her for his "Follies," but she got work as an extra in several movies. She spent much money on eye doctor's services trying to ...
20. Helen Shaver
Actress | Desert Hearts
Helen Shaver has built a lasting legacy, both behind and in front of the camera. She has directed hundreds of hours of television ranging from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) to Castle (2009), from The Unit (2006) to The Outer Limits (1995). Her film, Summer's End (1999), a Showtime ...
21. Paul Shaffer
Actor | Hercules
Paul Shaffer was born on November 28, 1949 in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. He is an actor and composer, known for Hercules (1997), This Is Spinal Tap (1984) and Blues Brothers 2000 (1998). He has been married to Catherine Maria Vasapoli since August 19, 1990. They have two children.
22. Ivan Reitman
Producer | Up in the Air
Canadian producer and director Ivan Reitman created many of American cinema's most successful and best loved feature film comedies and worked with Hollywood's acting elite. Reitman produced such hits as the ground-breaking sensation National Lampoon's National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), which ...
23. Sarah Polley
Actress | My Life Without Me
Sarah Polley is an actress and director renowned in her native Canada for her political activism. Blessed with an extremely expressive face that enables directors to minimize dialog due to her uncanny ability to suggest a character's thoughts, Polley has become a favorite of critics for her ...
24. Mary Pickford
Actress | Coquette
Mary Pickford was born Gladys Louise Smith in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Elsie Charlotte (Hennessy) and John Charles Smith. She was of English and Irish descent. Pickford began in the theater at age seven. Then known as "Baby Gladys Smith", she toured with her family in a number of theater ...
25. Howie Mandel
Producer | Bobby's World
The story goes that huggable, highly affable stand-up comedian Howie Mandel began his show biz career by chance while catching amateur night at the Comedy Store on the L.A. Sunset Strip during a vacation. Goaded on by friends to try out, a producer spotted him, hired him for an appearance on a ...
26. Susan Clark
Actress | Coogan's Bluff
Award-winning Canadian actress Susan Clark, born on March 8, 1943, took up acting at an early age (12) in her hometown of Sarnia, Ontario. Her family moved to Toronto around that period of time and she joined the Toronto Children's Players Theatre. Her first professional curtain call took place on ...
27. Morley Safer
Actor | Morning Glory
Morley Safer was born on November 8, 1931 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was an news anchor, known for 60 Minutes (1968).. He played himself in Morning Glory (2010) and A Man Without a Country (2012). He was married to Jane Fearer, and had a daughter, Sarah. He died on May 19, 2016 in New York ...
28. Eugene Levy
Actor | A Mighty Wind
Eugene Levy is an award-winning actor, writer, and producer. He has appeared in more than 60 motion pictures to date, eight of which having topped the $100M mark. The box office success of films such as Bringing Down the House (2003), Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005) , and Father of the Bride Part II ...
29. Alan Thicke
Soundtrack | Growing Pains
Alan Thicke was born on March 1, 1947 in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Canada. He was an actor and writer, known for Growing Pains (1985), Raising Helen (2004) and The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (2009). He was married to Tanya Callau, Gina Marie Tolleson and Gloria Loring. He died on December 13, 2016 ...
30. Marie Dressler
Actress | Dinner at Eight
Once you saw her, you would not forget her. Despite her age and weight, she became one of the top box office draws of the sound era. She was 14 when she joined a theater group and she went on to work on stage and in light opera. By 1892, she was on Broadway and she later became a star comedienne on...
31. Raymond Massey
Actor | Arsenic and Old Lace
Educated at the University of Toronto & Balliol College, Oxford, he joined the Canadian Field Artillery in World War I, served in France & was wounded. His first appearance was in a stage production in Siberia, during the multi-nation intervention of 1918 - 1919. Raymond returned to Canada & his ...
32. Walter Pidgeon
Actor | Forbidden Planet
Walter Pidgeon, a handsome, tall and dark-haired man, began his career studying voice at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He then did theater, mainly stage musicals. He went to Hollywood in the early 1920s, where he made silent films, including Mannequin (1926) and Sumuru (1927). ...
33. Glenn Ford
Actor | Gilda
Legendary actor Glenn Ford was born Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford in Sainte-Christine-d'Auvergne, Quebec, Canada, to Hannah Wood (Mitchell) and Newton Ford, a railroad executive. His family moved to Santa Monica, California when he was eight years old. His acting career began with plays at high school...
34. Raymond Burr
Actor | Rear Window
Born Raymond William Stacy Burr on 21 May 1917 in New Westminster, British Columbia, he spent most of his early life traveling. As a youngster, his father moved his family to China, where the elder Burr worked as a trade agent. When the family returned to Canada, Raymond's parents separated. He and...
35. Yvonne De Carlo
Actress | The Ten Commandments
Yvonne De Carlo was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton on September 1, 1922 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She was three when her father abandoned the family. Her mother turned to waitressing in a restaurant to make ends meet--a rough beginning for an actress who would, one day, be one of ...
36. Alan Young
Actor | The Time Machine
Alan Young was born in Northern England in 1919, but his Scots father moved the family to Edinburgh, Scotland, when Young was a toddler and then to Canada when Young was about 6 years old. As a boy, he suffered from severe asthma, which kept him bedridden for long periods of time but encouraged his...
37. Dan Aykroyd
Writer | Ghostbusters
Daniel Edward Aykroyd was born on July 1, 1952 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to Lorraine Hélène (Gougeon), a secretary from a French-Canadian family, and Samuel Cuthbert Peter Hugh Aykroyd, a civil engineer who advised prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Aykroyd attended Carleton University in 1969, where...
38. Norman Jewison
Director | Jesus Christ Superstar
Norman Jewison was an award-winning, internationally acclaimed filmmaker who produced and directed some of the world's most memorable, entertaining and socially important films, exploring controversial and complicated subjects and giving them a universal accessibility. Some of his most well-known ...
39. Fulvio Cecere
Actor | Valentine
Fulvio Cecere was born on March 11, 1960 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He is an actor and producer, known for Valentine (2001), The Age of Adaline (2015) and Double Jeopardy (1999).
40. Michael J. Fox
Actor | Back to the Future
Michael J. Fox was born Michael Andrew Fox on June 9, 1961 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to Phyllis Fox (née Piper), a payroll clerk, and William Fox. His parents moved their 10-year-old son, his three sisters, Kelli Fox, Karen, and Jacki, and his brother Steven, to Vancouver, British Columbia, ...
41. Melody Anderson
Actress | Flash Gordon
Melody Anderson was born on December 3, 1955 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She is an actress, known for Flash Gordon (1980), Speed Zone (1989) and Dead & Buried (1981).
42. Bryan Adams
Soundtrack | Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Canadian singer-songwriter Bryan Adams rose to fame with the release of his third album, "Cuts Like a Knife" (1983). The album made him popular throughout the United States. However, it was his fourth album "Reckless" (1984), which is referred to as one of the best albums of the decade that made ...
43. Pamela Anderson
Actress | Barb Wire
Pamela Denise Anderson was born on July 1, 1967 in Ladysmith, British Columbia, Canada at 4:08 PST, to young newlywed parents, Barry Anderson and Carol Anderson. Her ancestry includes Finnish, English, Irish, and Volga German. During her childhood, she moved to the city of Vancouver. She has a ...
44. Oliver Platt
Actor | The Three Musketeers
Oliver Platt was born in Windsor, Ontario, to American parents, Sheila Maynard, a social worker, and Nicholas Platt, a career diplomat. His parents were both from upper-class families, and his maternal great-grandmother, Cynthia Roche, was the sister of Princess Diana's maternal grandfather, ...
45. Rick Moranis
Actor | Parenthood
Rick began his career as a radio DJ while he was still at high school which led to him writing, producing and being on air in his own show. He joined the Canadian TV series, SCTV (1976), winning an Emmy for writing and portraying the character, Bob McKenzie, which became the basis for the film, ...
46. Leonard Cohen
Soundtrack | Watchmen
Leonard Cohen was born on September 21, 1934 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He was a music artist and composer, known for Watchmen (2009), Night Magic (1985) and Natural Born Killers (1994). He died on November 7, 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
47. Frank Shuster
Actor | The Wayne & Shuster Superspecial
Frank Shuster was born on September 5, 1916 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was an actor and writer, known for The Wayne & Shuster Superspecial (1976), Folio (1955) and Premiere (1968). He was married to Ruth Burtyn. He died on January 13, 2002 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
48. Johnny Wayne
Soundtrack | Behind the Candelabra
Johnny Wayne was born on May 28, 1918 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was an actor and writer, known for Behind the Candelabra (2013), The Wayne & Shuster Superspecial (1976) and Folio (1955). He died on July 18, 1990 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
49. Doug Henning
Actor | The Magic Show
Doug Henning was born on May 3, 1947 in Fort Garry, Manitoba, Canada. He was a writer and actor, known for The Magic Show (1983), Doug Henning's World of Magic (1976) and World of Magic (1977). He was married to Debby Douillard and Barbara De Angelis. He died on February 7, 2000 in Los Angeles, ...
50. Peter Jennings
Producer | ABC Evening News
Peter Jennings was born on July 29, 1938 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was a writer and producer, known for ABC World News Tonight with David Muir (1953), FDR (1982) and Peter Jennings Reporting: Breakdown - America's Health Insurance Crisis (2005). He was married to Kayce Freed, Kati Marton, ...
51. Paul Anka
Soundtrack | No Way Out
Canadian-born Paul Anka first achieved success in the 1950s as a teenage singing star (and, for the times, an unusual one in that he wrote many of his own songs). Although he appeared in several films, and was quite believable as a nervous, hyper young soldier in The Longest Day (1962) (for which ...
52. Joni Mitchell
Soundtrack | Two Weeks Notice
Joni Mitchell is one of the most highly regarded and influential songwriters of the 20th century. Her melodious tunes support her poetic and often very personal lyrics to make her one of the most authentic artists of her time. As a performer she is widely hailed for her unique style of playing ...
53. Guy Lombardo
Soundtrack | Never Let Me Go
He was an actor, known for Never Let Me Go (2010), Angel Heart (1987) and The Green Mile (1999). " Guy Lombardo was not an actor, he was a bandleader, and died in 1977 long before these films were released. His music however is on the soundtrack of these films.
54. Gordon Lightfoot
Soundtrack | Knives Out
Gordon Lightfoot may have been one of the most accomplished and well-known singer-songwriters to come out of Canada.
He is internationally known for such monumental folk/pop/rock hits as "Sundown", "If You Could Read My Mind", "Early Mornin' Rain", "Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald", and many more. ...
55. Neil Young
Composer | Dead Man
Neil Young is one of the most respected and prolific rock/folk guitarists of the late 20th century. Raised in Canada, he first became well-known as a guitarist and occasional vocalist for the band Buffalo Springfield. After the band's breakup, Young became a solo performer. However, he also has ...
56. Oscar Peterson
Soundtrack | Just Cause
Oscar Peterson, the famous jazz musician, started his recording career in the mid 40s with records for RCA. As member of the group "Jazz at the Philharmonic" he started touring in the 50s and continued until late in the 60s. During this time he made also numerous recordings for various labels. He ...
57. Percy Faith
Soundtrack | Reindeer Games
Percy Faith was a child piano prodigy, but his hands were burned in a fire at age 18. Switching to conducting and arranging, his unique orchestral 'sound', with strong emphasis on creative string work, soon became familiar to listeners everywhere. He recorded 85 albums for Columbia Records, and ...
58. Corey Hart
Soundtrack | Beverly Hills Cop II
Corey Hart was born on May 31, 1962 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is an actor and composer, known for Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), 9½ Weeks (1986) and Future Man (2017). He has been married to Julie Masse since June 1, 2000. They have four children. He was previously married to Erika ...
59. Michael Ironside
Actor | Starship Troopers
Michael Ironside has made a strong and indelible impression with his often incredibly intense and explosive portrayals of fearsome villains throughout the years. He was born as Frederick Reginald Ironside on February 12, 1950 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Ironside was a successful arm wrestler in ...
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