Stage Door News
Stage Door News
He was remembered as a husband, a father, a grandfather, great grandfather, colleague, mentor and one of Canada’s most respected actors.
At a celebration of his life Sunday at the Stratford’s Festival Theatre, William Needles was described as a master storyteller, a steadfast friend, and in the words of his sister Jane, “a gentle soul and a generous heart.”
Hundreds gathered for a touching tribute to Needles, a veteran of 47 seasons at the Stratford Festival, who died in January at the age of 97.
“Bill Needles was a gifted artist, he was an inspired teacher, he was a pioneer of Canadian theatre,” said Festival artistic director Antoni Cimolino, who delivered one in a long list of tributes to the man affectionately known as “Billy Noodles.”
He was patient, kind and generous, but he could be firm too, said Cimolino, recalling the time when Needles took a young Festival director to task for his arrogance and callousness.
“That young director was me,” he said.
Fellow Festival actor Colm Feore noted that Needles was 40 years older than him, but never acted like it.
“Where he could have been grand, he was gracious,” he said. “Every time I saw him, I marvelled that he was alive. I would say, ‘Are you yet living?’”
It’s a line from Much Ado About Nothing, and it always went over well with the man who was, for a time, Canada’s oldest working actor.
Benedict Campbell, whose father Douglas was a contemporary of Needles, talked about the actor’s “extraordinary generosity,” and the way he sincerely cared for his fellow company members.
“It’s hard to pinpoint what it was about Bill that influenced you so much. He was just Bill,” said Campbell, adding that Needles had a “magical twinkle that so few possess.”
Seana McKenna also praised his “humanity and compassion,” and the way he could be relied upon to provide a wry comment or wicked story, as well as “sage advice, life experience, good gossip and, yes, kindness.”
She told the story of their time working together on the 1998 production of Tennessee Williams’ Night of the Iguana, when Needles, then 79, had to spend long periods of the play lounging in a Mexican cabana, and would sometimes nod off.
Cast members put a vibrating buzzer under his chair to wake him up, “and sometimes it worked,” said McKenna, adding that Needles described the experience as “not entirely unpleasant.”
Actors Geraint Wyn Davies, Lucy Peacock, Nicolas Van Burek, Trent Pardy, Roger Shank and Geoffrey Whynot, as well as granddaughter Megan Bradley added their own remembrances of the man, while comedian Jon Lovitz appeared by video in a hilarious tribute to Needles, his former drama professor at the University of California, Irvine.
“He was the professor you dreamed about,” said Lovitz, who based his famous Saturday Night Live character Master Thespian on Needles.
Sunday’s celebration also included moving performances by Loreena McKennitt, as well as Gerald Isaac accompanied by former Festival music director Berthold Carriere.
Family members attending the event included Needles’ wife Dorothy, Jane, his sister, as well as his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
His son, playwright Dan Needles, offered heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported his father during his time at the Stratford Festival.
“You were his family, and this was his home,” he said.
By Mike Baitz for www.stratfordbeaconherald.com.
Photo: William Needles.
2016-04-17
Stratford: Stratford Festival hosts a celebration of the life of William Needles