Brent Carver (November 17, 1951 – August 4, 2020) was a Canadian actor who was best known for his performances on Broadway in Parade as Leo Frank and Kiss of the Spider Woman as Molina, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical in 1993.

Contents

• 1 Early life
• 2 Career
  • 2.1 Death
• 3 Credits
  • 3.1 Filmography
  • 3.2 Theatre
• 4 References
• 5 External links

Early life

Carver was born of Welsh and Irish heritage in Cranbrook, British Columbia, the son of Lois (Wills), a clerk, and Kenneth Carver, who was in the lumber business. He was the third of seven children, none of whom went into show business, apart from himself. He almost became a teacher, but continued participating in theatre. He attended the University of British Columbia from 1969 to 1972. He sang from an early age, with his father who played guitar. Carver's favourite actors were Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis.

Career

Carver was known for a variety of stage and film roles, including The Wars, Kronborg: 1582, Lilies, Larry's Party, Elizabeth Rex, Millennium, Shadow Dancing, and Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love. Carver originated the role of Gandalf in the Toronto stage production of The Lord of the Rings and appeared in several Soulpepper Theatre Company productions such as The Wild Duck, Don Carlos and as the Pirate King in the 1985 production of The Pirates of Penzance.

Carver played the character Leo on the series Leo and Me, which aired from 1977 to 1978.

Carver made his U.S. debut in The Tempest, playing Ariel to Anthony Hopkins's Prospero. Carver won a Dora Award as Horst in Bent. His stage work involved an extended *ociation with Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival in the 1980s, including an original rock version of Hamlet, as the lead and later in 2000 as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.

In 1993, Carver won a Tony Award which he dedicated to the late Canadian actress Susan Wright, who had died two years earlier in a fire in his Stratford house, Ontario. In May 2014, Carver received a Governor General's Performing Arts Award, Canada's highest honour in the performing arts, for his lifetime contribution to Canadian theatre.

Carver portrayed Ichabod Crane in the 1999 TV film The Legend of Sleepy Hollow which aired on Odyssey. He played the *le role in "The Trouble with Harry", an episode of the television series Twice in a Lifetime. He portrayed Leonardo da Vinci in Leonardo: A Dream of Flight in 2002.

In 2016, Carver performed in a musical show *led Walk Me to the Corner at the Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company in Toronto.

Death

Carver died on August 4, 2020, at the age of 68 at home in Cranbrook.

Credits

Filmography

• The Beachcombers (1972, TV Series)
• Inside Canada (1974, TV Series)
• One Night Stand (1978, TV Movie) as Rafe
• Leo and Me (1978, TV Series) as Leo
• Crossbar (1979, TV Movie) as Aaron Kornylo
• The Wars (1983) as Robert Ross
• Cross Country (1983) as John Forrest
• Anne's Story (1984, TV Movie)
• Love and Larceny (1985, TV Movie) as Charles Chadwick
• The Pirates of Penzance (1985, TV Movie) as Pirate King
• All for One (1985, TV Movie)
• Adderly (1987, TV Series)
• Much Ado About Nothing (1987, TV Movie) as Don John
• Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs (1988, TV Movie) as Gunther
• Shadow Dancing (1988) as Alexei
• The Twilight Zone (1989, TV Series) as Josef
• War of the Worlds (1989, TV Series) as Jesse
• Millennium (1989) as Coventry
• Love and Hate: The Story of Colin and JoAnn Thatcher (1989, TV Movie) as Tony Merchant
• Street Legal (1989-1994, TV Series) as Scott Farrow #2 / Arthur Fraticelli
• The Hidden Room (1991, TV Series)
• The Shower (1992) as Kevin
• The Song Spinner (1995, TV Movie) as Selmo
• Lilies (1996) as Countess de Tilly
• Margie Gillis: Wild Hearts in Strange Times (1996) as Singer / Dancer
• Leonardo: A Dream of Flight (1996, TV Movie) as Leonardo DaVinci
• Whiskers (1997, TV Movie) as Whiskers
• Due South (1997, TV Series) as Bruce Spender
• Balls Up (1997, TV Movie) as Geoff
• L'histoire de l'Oie (1998, TV Movie) as Maurice (English version)
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1999, TV Movie) as Ichabod Crane
• Twice in a Lifetime (2000, TV Series) as Harry
• Deeply (2000) as Porter
• The City (2000, TV Series) as Sam
• Ararat (2002) as Philip
• The Event (2003) as Brian Knight
• Elizabeth Rex (2004, TV Movie) as Ned Lowenscroft
• This Is Wonderland (2005, TV Series)
• Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story (2006, TV Mini-Series) as Secretary Balsam
• Lightchasers (2007, Short) as Man
• Romeo and Juliet (2014) as Friar Laurence
• The Whale (2014, Short) as Ryley Crewson

Theatre

• Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (1972)
• Bent (1981)
• Hamlet (1986)
• Cabaret (1987)
• Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love (1990)
• Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993–1995)
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1994)
• Richard II (1995)
• High Life (1996)
• Don Carlos (1998)
• Parade (1998–1999)
• Fiddler on the Roof (2000)
• Larry's Party (2001)
• King Lear (2004)
• Lord of the Rings (2006)
• The Elephant Man (2007)
• As You Like It (2010)
• Romeo and Juliet (2013)
• Evangeline (2015)
• Twelfth Night (2017)
• The School for Scandal (2017)

References

External links

• Brent Carver at the Internet Broadway Database
• Brent Carver at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Brent Carver at IMDb
• Brent Carver at the Canadian Encyclopedia