Martha Henry is usually referred to as "the first lady of the Canadian stage." She is certainly one of Canada’s most honoured and respected actors. But that recognition is a long way from her early beginnings in the United States. Born Martha Buhs in Detroit, Michigan, in 1938, the world was on the brink of war and the United States was just coming to grips with a decade called The Dirty Thirties. It was a pretty tough time, and her own circumstances were made tougher when her parents went their separate ways. Her mother was a musician who played piano and accordion in nightclubs and hotel bars. Her schedule made it hard to be a mom, and so Martha Buhs was left with her grandparents where she lived from age five to 14.

It was during this time she developed the habit of reading late into the night, and caught the theatre bug when she found two scripts tucked away in a trunk belonging to her grandmother. Reading them, she realized she could change her life just by becoming someone else.

She moved back in with her mother when she was 14 and won a scholarship to Kingswood, a private school outside Detroit with a theatre program. When she graduated she looked for a college with a strong drama department and chose Carnegie Tech because it was the only one to require an audition. Buhs didn't know at the time, but it was one of the most prestigious drama schools in the United States.

In high school, she worked as an apprentice at a Michigan summer stock company where she once saw George C. Scott perform. He and a director had started a small theatre company in Leamington, Ontario, and Buhs spent three summers there as the resident ingenue, performing in one play a week. It was a great introduction to theatre and to Canada because only a short drive away was the Stratford Festival. After graduating, Martha headed north, instead of to New York like most of her classmates. Interviewed years later she said, "I wanted to be in a country that made theatre like Stratford."

She auditioned for the Crest Theatre in Toronto and in that first year met Powys Thomas, who was just laying the groundwork for the National Theatre School in Montréal. Buhs was still young, a recent graduate, and the chance to learn even more about her chosen profession was too tempting to ignore. She joined the first class but halfway through the three-year program, she received an invitation to join the company at Stratford. Because of her accomplishments, including a performance at the Manitoba Theatre Centre in 1961 where she met and became friends with its director, John Hirsch, the school decided to graduate her. Which is how she became, literally, the first graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada. It was there that she met and married her first husband, fellow student Donnelly Rhodes, and adopted his mother's madien name, Henry. They were divorced several years later and had no children.

Henry moved to Stratford (where she continues to make her home) and made her stage debut in 1962 as Miranda in The Tempest. It was the beginning of a long and usually gratifying association. At last count, she has worked at Stratford, when not on the road, for some 28 out of the past 40-plus seasons, appearing in more than 20 different Shakespeare plays as well as turning up in a number of non-Shakespeare productions of both classical and modern drama.

The artistic director of Stratford for much of this period was the British-born Robin Phillips. In the early 1980s there was a fateful decision to replace him, and Henry was one of four people asked to work together as co-artistic directors. It was like begging for failure, and the chaos that followed resulted in Henry turning her back on Stratford for a number of years. But in the beginning she drew critical notices and her work was well received. Her directorial debut was Noel Coward's Brief Lives, starring Douglas Rain, who she would later marry. The chaos at Stratford could not continue, and when Phillips returned, Henry was invited to assist him his 1986 production of Cymbeline. As a result she became the festival’s associate director for the next two seasons. Just a few of her credits as director include Moon for Misbegotten for Toronto's Tarragon Theatre, The Grace of Mary Travers and All Other Destinations Are Cancelled. She also spent seven very successful years as artistic director of the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario, from 1988 to 1994. But Stratford was her home.

Her 1999 production of Richard II garnered excellent reviews as did her production of the premier in 2000 of Timothy Findley's Elizabeth. Coincidently she had had a role in the 1983 movie, The Wars, with a screenplay by Timothy Findley from his own novel. The movie was directed by Robin Phillips, and Henry received a Genie for her work. She also received Genie Awards for Dancing in the Dark (1986), Mustard Bath (1994) and Long Day's Journey into Night (1996). She directed Morris Panych's Vigil at the River Run Centre in Guelph, Ontario, in November, 2000. For the summer 2003 season at Stratford she directed Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, and spent part of the summer at The Shaw Festival directing The Royal Family by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber.

Aside from Stratford, Henry has found eager audiences in such great theatre cities as London, England, and New York. Closer to home, she has appeared at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Calgary, The Centaur Theatre in Montréal, the Neptune Theatre in Halifax and as well as her work on television and in movies. In addition to her nice collection of Genie and Gemini Awards, she was been honoured with the Governor General's Award, the World Theatre Award, six honourary doctorates and The Order of Canada.

Over 60 years ago, a lonely little girl dreamt of being on stage, of becoming someone else. It is probably safe to say that Martha Henry has succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.

Go to Martha Henry's Filmography