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Martha Henry, one of the most prominent Canadian actors, died in late October. She was 83.

Henry wasn't actually born in Canada. She was born Martha Buhs and raised in Detroit, but moved to this country in 1959. According to her obituary in The Globe and Mail, at the age of 19, after studying acting at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, she visited the Stratford Festival for the first time and saw Christopher Plummer play Hamlet, and decided she wanted to live in a country that had such a theatre festival. So after graduating she hitchhiked to Toronto and auditioned for the Crest Theatre.

She was the first graduate of the National Theatre School—not just a member of its first graduating class, but actually the first graduate, because when she landed a role at Stratford during her final year at the NTS, the school allowed her to graduate early so she could join the Stratford company.

She worked at Stratford most of her life, though they parted ways for a period in the 1980s and early 90s, during which she was artistic director of the Grand Theatre in London and acted in several films.

This past summer Martha Henry starred in Stratford's production of Three Tall Women, by Edward Albee, even though her health was failing. Fortunately it fit the character she played for her to use a walker, and toward the end of the run a wheelchair, on stage. She died just eight days after her final performance.