George R. Robertson : George R. Robertson - Canadian actor, screenwriter, humanitarian.
George R. Robertson was born in Brampton, Ontario on April 20, 1933. His father was one of the founders of the Chainway stores in Toronto. His parents (Stuart H. Robertson and Mayme Kidd) moved every year with the opening of new stores in Ontario. Around 1942, the Robertsons settled in Montreal where his father was the senior buyer for the Chainway stores. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, George Robertson studied at West Hill High School, where he was awarded the Allan Hall Trophy in 1952 for his athletic abilities.
During subsequent years, Robertson attended McGill University for one year (mining engineering), worked for Trevor Peck Co. Limited, continued his studies at Sir George Williams campus and completed a diploma from Carrier Air Conditioning Headquarters in Syracuse, NY.
In the late 1950s, after spending three months in Europe, Robertson went on to pursue his post-secondary education at Columbia University (New York City), where he met his wife Adele Marie Probst and where he received a BS degree in 1958 and an MBA degree in 1959. His Columbia University graduate thesis pertained to why Broadway theatre ticket sales were declining. Columbia University felt Robertson's thesis was significant enough to send it out as a press release. As a result, critics for daily newspapers such as the NY Journal-American and the New York Herald Tribune (notably film critic Judy Crist) wrote columns reviewing his research.
While living in New York City Robertson became increasingly interested in the arts and pursued an acting career. He studied singing with Giuseppe Balestrieri (an opera coach) and acting at the HB Studio with Uta Hagen. He was accepted in 1961 by the Actors Studio but continued with HB Studio. While in NYC, he acted in various soap operas (Secret Storm and Love of Life) and modelled during school and early in his career for Celanese and other print ads. He also travelled and played various roles in American regional theatres. From 1961 onward, he also starred in many summer theatre roles and performed on Broadway in the play Venus Is.
In 1966, George and Adele moved to California (with their first daughter, Sarah Kidd Robertson). Alongside acting, George ran a custom-made furniture business with a fellow actor making tables from hatch covers from abandoned ships. During this time, their second daughter, Ellen Probst Robertson, was born. However, increasingly interested in writing, Robertson and his family returned to Toronto in 1972, where his career as a writer and actor flourished.
During his career, Robertson appeared in approximately 59 films, three of which were nominated for the best picture Oscar: Airport (1970), Norma Rae (1979) and JFK (1991). Other notable feature films (and made for television films) include Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Mad Trapper (1972), Paper Back Hero (1972), The Dawson Patrol (1978), Power Play (1978), and Escape from Iran: Canadian Caper (1981). Robertson's acting career reached its pinnacle when he was cast as Chief Henry Hurst in Police Academy, the 1984 cop farce starring Steve Guttenberg. The film was a franchise that spanned seven films during the next decade, including one a year through 1989. He appeared in the first six instalments.
He also appeared in many made for television movies and television series, notably CBC's House of Pride (1974-1976) or the acclaimed CTV Series E.N.G. (1989-1994) and ABC's The Path to 9/11 (2006), a miniseries in which he portrayed American vice president Dick Cheney.
Alongside his acting career, Robertson worked as a screen and radio writer, an actor and narrator for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the National Film Board. He contributed to such docudramas as the award-winning Dawson Patrol (1978) for which he received commendations from Commander Norman Inkster head of the RCMP in the late 1970s. Other CBC docudramas include Ballad of the Bicycle, Down to the Sea (a history of Canada's sailing vessels), and From L'Anse aux Meadows on. Robertson wrote and co-wrote numerous radio plays for the CBC notably the supernatural horror series Nightfall (1980-1983) in addition to researching and writing CBC radio documentaries such as the Bush and the Salon series based on Canadian history (1972-1975). Robertson also wrote extensively for CBC's Morningside show with Don Harron (1983-1985) and for Lister Sinclair's IDEAS (1994-2001). Robertson was also a successful writer of industrial business and training films.
For many years, he was a noted UNICEF Canada Celebrity Ambassador, travelling across Canada to raise awareness of UNICEF Canada's role in developing countries. Other humanitarian activities included walking the canal de Midi in France to raise funds for an orphanage in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Robertson received numerous awards and recognition for his work as an actor, screenwriter and humanitarian. He was awarded the Danny Kaye Unicef Canada Award (1990), CBC's Margaret Collier Gemini Writing Award (1993) for his outstanding body of work on film or TV, and the Gemini Humanitarian award (2004) presented by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television for "extraordinary compassion and community involvement [that has had] an enormous impact on the lives of children in Canada and around the world."
Later in his life, Robertson became an accomplished painter and continued writing.
He died in Toronto on January 29, 2023.
