Timothy Findley

Timothy Findley was raised in the affluent Rosedale district of Toronto, Ontario. He attended St. Andrew's College, the same boarding school Robert Ross and Clifford Purchas attend before enlisting in the army in The Wars. As a young adult, Findley was a successful actor before he became a writer. He was part of the original company of the Stratford Festival (a world-renowned Shakespeare festival in Ontario) in the 1950s, and appeared on several popular Canadian television programs. In 1962, Findley met Bill Whitehead, a writer who eventually became his domestic partner and artistic collaborator. Ruth Gordon, a friend of Findley’s who was a screenwriter and playwright, encouraged him to try writing, so Findley retired from acting in the 1960s in order to pursue writing full-time. Though his first two novels were rejected by Canadian publishers, his third novel, The Wars, received great critical acclaim and won the Governor General’s Award. Findley went on to publish seven additional novels, as well as several short story collections, plays, and memoirs. He was also a founding member and chair of the Writers’ Union of Canada. Findley achieved high prestige as a writer before his death at age 71, having been awarded the Trillium Book Award among many other literary honors, appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada, and inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame.