Like everything else throughout his six-decade career, William Hutt’s public profile was a product of his careful design. He could have left Canada for high profile career in Hollywood or headed to Broadway and shone as brightly as the biggest Broadway stars. Instead, he chose a quieter, more fruitful path that kept him among his countrymen in a town he cherishes.
Born in Toronto on May 2, 1920, Hutt made his professional stage debut in summer stock at the relatively mature age of 28 and was immediately recruited by Ottawa’s Canadian Repertory Theatre. Two seasons later he took a chance on a fledgling repertory company, housed inside a tent on the banks of the Avon River in Stratford, Ontario. The Stratford Shakespearean Festival has long since grown to become one of the world’s most respected theatrical showcases – and Hutt was there almost every step of the way. Since 1953, Hutt’s Stratford career has included all of Shakespeare’s great heroes, including Hamlet, Lear, Falstaff, Prospero, Macbeth, and Titus Andronicus.
Every few years, Hutt ventured into film, television, or stage projects, like his superb 1964 Broadway performance in Edward Albee’s Tiny Alice; his award-winning portrayal of John A. Macdonald in the ambitious 1974 mini-series The National Dream; and his definitive portrait of the tormented patriarch in the 1999 film adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night.
The summer of 2000 marked his 37th Stratford Festival season. Hutt retired from the Stratford stage in 2005 with a reprise of Prospero in The Tempest, a role for which he was renowned. He appeared in the television series Slings and Arrows as an ailing stage icon who wants to play King Lear one last time.
