{"id":5728,"date":"2025-03-06T10:02:12","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T10:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=5728"},"modified":"2025-09-07T19:55:26","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T19:55:26","slug":"alberta-watson-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=5728","title":{"rendered":"When Canadian actress Alberta Watson was just Susan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Alberta-Watson-Version-2-x650.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5729\" src=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Alberta-Watson-Version-2-x650.jpg\" alt=\"Alberta Watson - Version 2 x650\" width=\"650\" height=\"507\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Alberta-Watson-Version-2-x650.jpg 650w, https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Alberta-Watson-Version-2-x650-300x234.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/a>By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n<p>LONDON \u2013 I knew Canadian actress Alberta Watson, whose birthday was today, a long time ago when she went by her first name, Susan. To meet Susan Watson in 1977 was to fall in love. She was 21, beautiful and a force of nature.<\/p>\n<p>We stalked each other around a CBC party when we first met and went out a few times. Then she took her middle name and was Alberta Watson and became a star.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Sadly, our paths never crossed again\u00a0but you never forget someone like that. <a href=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Susan-Watson-3-x325.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-5731\" src=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Susan-Watson-3-x325.jpg\" alt=\"Susan Watson 3 x325\" width=\"325\" height=\"920\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Susan-Watson-3-x325.jpg 325w, https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Susan-Watson-3-x325-106x300.jpg 106w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 325px) 100vw, 325px\" \/><\/a>I still have the edition of TV Times from January 22 1977 when we put her on the cover. What\u2019s amazing is that she had no TV show to plug. Colleague Wessely Hicks mentioned her role as Aspasia in something titled \u201cHonour Thy Father\u201d and a bit part part in a CBC drama called \u201cSara\u201d and that\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n<p>Hicks wrote that she is \u201cstill aspiring to be an actress despite the dearth of work in the profession\u201d and Susan said, \u201cRight now, there is nothing. Absolutely nothing \u2013 not even auditions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In spite of that, such was her charisma that we put her on the cover of a national magazine. She told TV Times: \u201cI catch glimpses of what I want to be as an actress. It has become very serious for me. I\u2019m losing the street urchin in me. It bothers me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, she always stayed in\u00a0touch with that street urchin and it was part of what made her such a fine actress.<\/p>\n<p>She starred in movies such as \u201cSpanking the Monkey\u201d, \u201cThe Sweet Hereafter\u201d, \u201cHedwig and the Angry Inch\u201d and \u201cA Lobster Tale\u201d plus TV shows including \u201cKing of Kensington\u201d, \u201cHill Street Blues\u201d, \u201cThe Equalizer\u201d, \u201cLaw &amp; Order\u201d, \u201cLa Femme Nikita\u201d and \u201c24\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>She died in 2015 aged 60. I wish we had stayed in touch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ray Bennett LONDON \u2013 I knew Canadian actress Alberta Watson, whose birthday was today, a long time ago when she went by her first name, Susan. To meet Susan Watson in 1977 was to fall in love. She was &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=5728\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1263,9,15],"tags":[3081],"class_list":["post-5728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-memory-lane","category-news","category-television","tag-alberta-watson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5728"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11523,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5728\/revisions\/11523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}