The ever-diminishing list of survivors from the first season of the Stratford Festival grew smaller yesterday when Bruce Swerdfager died of complications from diabetes at the age of 79.
Swerdfager spent four years as an actor at Stratford, appearing in every show before moving on to become company manager and then general manager, a position he held until 1976.
He also served as company manager of the Canadian Players, as well as general manager of the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts and the Dallas Theatre Center.
Born in Ottawa in 1928, Swerdfager was a member of the Ottawa Little Theatre at night and worked as an office machinery salesman for Remington Rand during the day.
After an interview with Sir Tyrone Guthrie, the festival’s first artistic director offered him a place in the initial season and Swerdfager cautiously asked for a leave of absence from Remington Rand, rather than simply quitting.
The influence of Guthrie is what Swerdfager remembered most strongly from the initial season at Stratford.
“He was probably the key to its whole success,” he said in a 2000 interview with the Star. “I think of that incredible personality and dynamic that he had, his ability to direct people and to inspire them at the right time.”
At the end of his first season as a Stratford actor, Swerdfager recalled, “I got a big cheque from Remington Rand even though I was on a leave of absence. It was the commission from a whole room of typewriters I had sold ..... just before I started working at Stratford.
“(It was) more money than I’d made all season from the theatre. And I said `Am I crazy? Do I really want to go into this business?’ And I did.”
Swerdfager spent the last 22 years of his life quietly in Stratford, which he called “a caring community, a wonderful community in which to live.” He appeared for the last time as an actor in the 1986 season.
“When I left my job selling something solid like typewriters to work for something as shaky as the Stratford Festival, everybody thought I was crazy,” he said.
“Well look at things now. Who would have guessed the Stratford Festival would outlast the typewriter?”
He leaves his wife, Mary, and children, Ann Swerdfager and John, Kathy and Paul Robertson, as well as four grandchildren.
Visitation will be at W.G. Young Funeral Home, 430 Huron St., Stratford (519- 271-7411) on Thursday 2 p.m. - 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
The funeral will be held Friday at 11 a.m. at St. James Church in Stratford.
