- published: 19 Jan 2013
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John Keith Vernon (February 24, 1932 – February 1, 2005) was a Canadian actor. He made a career in Hollywood after achieving initial television stardom in Canada.
Vernon was born Adolphus Raymondus Vernon Agopsowicz in Zehner, Saskatchewan, and was baptised at the Sacred Heart Catholic parish in the nearby town of Arat. He was one of two sons of Adolf Agopsowicz, a grocer, and his wife Eleonore Krückel (also spelled as Eleanor Kriekle or Kriekel). Both parents' families immigrated to the Edenwold district in the late 19th century from the Austrian crownland and duchy of Bukovina. He was of Armenian, German, and Polish descent.
Vernon was educated at the Banff School of Fine Arts and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London before becoming a live stage actor on the early CBC. In 1974, he completed a season at The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England, playing Malvolio.
He made his screen debut in 1956 as the voice of Big Brother in Michael Anderson's film version of George Orwell's 1984 starring Edmond O'Brien. He returned to Canada afterwards and gained film experience appearing on the TV series Tugboat Annie and The Last of the Mohicans. Vernon typically played a stern, authoritarian kind of character. He made his Broadway debut in 1964 as DeSoto opposite Christopher Plummer and David Carradine in The Royal Hunt of the Sun. During the Golden Age of CBC Drama in the 1960s he co-starred in Edna O'Brien's A Cheap Bunch of Nice Flowers opposite Colleen Dewhurst, and opposite William Hutt and Rita Gam in Uncle Vanya. These prestige productions led to his starring in the CBC series Wojeck in the late 1960s, playing a crime-fighting medical examiner (the series has been acknowledged as the inspiration for the later American series Quincy M.E., later starring in as a gangster in the episode Requiem For The Living). He left the series in order to further his acting career in the United States. In 1967, he appeared opposite Lee Marvin in Point Blank.
Actors: Rob Lane (composer), Fiona Curzon (actress), George Little (actor), Sunshine Jackson Underhill (miscellaneous crew), Jonathan Hourigan (writer), Jonathan Hourigan (director), Jon Hammond (editor), Jenny Whiffen (actress), Eleanor Martin (actress), Nicholas Kelly (producer), Andrew Loudon (actor),
Genres: Drama,Actors: Robert Stevenson (director), Carl Benton Reid (actor), Regis Toomey (actor), Emerson Treacy (actor), Will Wright (actor), Paul Kelly (actor), Beverly Washburn (actress), Eugene Vale (writer), Jack Denove (producer),
Genres: Short,