Dawn Greenhalgh, a Canadian actress who worked across six decades of stage, film and television, died November 6 in Toronto at 93. News of her death emerged Saturday. The reports gave no cause. Born in Shanghai, Greenhalgh made her name in the theatre. She and her then-husband, the actor Ted Follows, established themselves as stage performers in the late 1950s and 1960s. The couple married in 1958 and divorced in 1979. Follows died in 2016.
Screen work followed. Greenhalgh appeared in “Slings and Arrows,” “Dracula: The Series,” “Strange Paradise,” “La Femme Nikita,” “Saving Hope” and “Five Days at Memorial.” On film, she took roles in Sofia Coppola’s “The Virgin Suicides” and David Cronenberg’s “Map to the Stars.” Younger audiences knew her voice as Queen Celeste, the wife of Babar the elephant, in the animated series “Babar.”
Her best-known role came alongside her daughter. In the 1985 Canadian miniseries “Anne of Green Gables,” Greenhalgh appeared opposite Megan Follows, who played the title character and won a Gemini Award for it. Variety described Greenhalgh as a stage veteran, while Deadline called her the matriarch of one of Canada’s most significant acting families.
That description fits. Her four children with Ted Follows all work in entertainment. Edwina Follows is a television writer and producer, and Samantha and Laurence also joined the family trade. In 2001, Ted Follows directed Noël Coward’s “Hay Fever” in Gravenhurst, Ontario, with a cast drawn from the family: himself, Greenhalgh, their children and their children’s spouses. Greenhalgh leaves her children Edwina Follows, Laurence Follows, Samantha Follows and Megan Follows, along with six grandchildren and two step-grandchildren.
