B: April 20, 1921 in Paris, France
D: March 28, 2017 in Montréal, Québec
Born in Paris, Janine Sutto was a prolific actress and comedian who delighted Quebec audiences for decades. Her parents both worked for Pathé. Her father was an associate of Charles Pathé, and later became a film distributor, while her mother was his private secretary. Following the collapse of the world economy after the stock market crash in October of 1929, the family decided to leave France and settled in Montréal, Québec. Her career began on stage in 1940 when she made her debut in a play by the French section of the Montreal Repertory Theatre, a semi-amateur, semi-professional troupe. She had appeared at major theatres across Quebec in productions ranging from classics by Molière and Shakespeare to works by modern Quebec playwrights, and was well known to radio and TV audiences for her starring roles in numerous dramas and series. Sutto enjoyed hugely successful engagements at such leading companies as the Montreal Repertory Theatre, the Théâtre Arcade, Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, and Théâtre du Rideau Vert. Among her many triumphs, she appeared in the original 1968 production of Michel Tremblay’s iconic play Les Belles sœurs; over four decades later, in 2010, she performed in the musical adaptation Belles sœurs, which was a huge hit in Montreal, toured across Quebec, and had a five-week run in Paris. In 1986 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Companion in 1991. In 1998, she was made a Knight of the National Order of Quebec. Sutto received a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award in 2014. She was less than a month away from her 96th birthday when she died in Montréal. Janine Sutto had stopped performing when she was 92.
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