Polley to get ACTRA Award of Excellence

Sarah Polley in 2003. (CP file photo)

Canada's actors' union has named Sarah Polley the 2006 recipient of its annual Award of Excellence.

Polley, star of The Secret Life of Words and The Sweet Hereafter, also has a reputation as a writer, director and cultural activist.

ACTRA plans to honour Polley and name its best actor and best actress at an annual awards gala Feb. 24.

"Sarah is so much more than an actor," says Karl Pruner, president of ACTRA Toronto. "We admire her fierce commitment to Canadian culture and her strength in speaking her mind."

Polley rose to fame as a young girl, starring in the TV series Road to Avonlea. She won a Gemini for her performance in the film Lantern Hill and another for her performance in the CBC series Straight Up.

She made a successful transition to adult film roles in features like Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter, Dawn of the Dead and The Hanging Garden, earning a Genie and an ACTRA award for her role in My Life Without Me. Spanish director Isabel Coixet wrote a role for Polley into The Secret Life of Words, a film that just won four Goya film awards in Spain.

Polly recently lobbied the Heritage Committee over the health of the film industry and the lack of dramatic film work for Canadian actors.

The Toronto branch of ACTRA, Canada's largest, also honours a best actor or actress from across several genres, including film, TV series, miniseries and movies of the week.

Here are more sites that contain biographies and movie stills of this talented Canadian star.

Memorable Scenes of Sarah Polley
The Sarah Polley Picture Site
Sarah Polley- Northern Stars
Sarah Polley - Yahoo! Movies
Sarah Polley [dot] Org - sarahpolley.org

Later,
Kenaz

Famous Hamiltonian's:Samuel Lawrence

Sam Lawrence joining a picket line supporting nine hour days for restaurant workers in the 1930s.
Samuel Lawrence
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Samuel Lawrence (August 16, 1879 - October 25, 1959) was a Canadian politician and trade unionist.

Lawrence was born in Somerset, England and went to work in a quarry at the age of 12 and became a shop steward in the mason's union at the age of 17. He entered politics running for election in Battersea in London.

He immigrated to Canada settling in Hamilton, Ontario with his family in 1912 and found work as a stone mason. He became involved in the local labour movement and was elected to city council as an Independent Labour Party alderman in 1922. He ran as a Labour candidate in the 1925 federal election but lost his bid for a seat in the Canadian House of Commons, coming in second. He remained on city council and was elected to Hamilton's Board of Control in 1929, retaining his seat until 1934 when he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as the Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Hamilton East, the first Co-operative Commonwealth Federation MLA ever elected in Ontario. He was also the only CCFer elected in the 1934 election, and was defeated in his bid for re-election in the 1937 election.

Lawrence then served for a time as president of the local Industrial Union Council, and subsequently regained his seat on the Board of Control and kept it for six years. He was elected the first Labour mayor of Hamilton in 1944. He was re-elected mayor annually until his retirement from the office in 1949.

During his tenure as mayor, the city went through the deeply divisive 85-day Stelco strike of 1946. The strike was the union's first, and its victory established the United Steel Workers of America as a major force in Canada. It also helped establish the right of Canadian workers to collective bargaining. Lawrence was publicly supportive of the strike, and led a 10,000-person march from Woodlawns Park to the gates of Stelco. Despite pressure from the federal and provincial governments, he refused to call in police or the military against the illegal strike, and thus helped ensure its victory. When the federal government sent the army in, Lawrence angrily said that "the government was acting as the nation's chief strike breaker."

After stepping down as mayor in 1949, Lawrence continued on the Board of Control for six years until his retirement from politics.

Later,
Kenaz