I can think of all kinds of memorable spoken quotations. Winston Churchill’s wartime proclamation, “We will fight them on the beaches…” Oprah Winfrey’s motto, “Think like a queen.” Danny Gallivan’s “Savardian Spin-o-rama” on Hockey Night in Canada. Not only are the words etched in my memory, so are their voices. But there’s another memorable voice I’ve always heard around Christmastime offering these memorable words:
“I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was 12, or whether it snowed for 12 days and 12 nights when I was six.” Of course, those are words of Dylan Thomas, from the opening of A Child’s Christmas in Wales.
But I have only ever heard one voice associated with those lines, that of Kenneth Welsh. He offered them almost every year in and around our community – at the library, church halls, local pubs and once at a house concert. And I made a point of never missing him recite the poem.
But from now on I’ll only be able to remember that voice in my head, imagine those recitals and reflect on his performances when I see photographs. The brilliant stage, screen and TV actor, died this past week in our midst. He’d just celebrated his 80th birthday a month ago and had just married his partner Lynne McIlvride.
When I think about Ken’s persona, it’s most often wrapped in the sound of his versatile voice – whether in playful conversation on the street or delivered in one of his magical performances.
Just last fall, in one of Ken’s last public appearances, he joined Terry Fallis and me as part of Blue Heron’s Book Drunkard Literary Festival to talk about his role of Angus McLintock in Terry’s book-turned-TV-series Best Laid Plans. I asked Ken Welsh where McLintock’s character came from.
“He’s a bit Welsh. He’s a bit of an old acting teacher of mine,” he said. “But there’s a lot of me in him.”
“When I think of Angus,” Terry Fallis responded, “I immediately think of Ken. It took one day on the set, before (he) had replaced five years of mental images.”
No better praise exists for an actor than when a writer imagines and an actor delivers so completely. That’s why Kenneth’s historically based characterizations remain so indelible – Colin Thatcher (Love and Hate), Harry Truman (Hiroshima), Thomas Edison (The Wizard of Light), Harry Crerar (Dieppe), Thomas Dewey (FDR: The Last Year) and James Scotty Reston (Kissinger and Nixon), to name a few.
In Canada, his on-camera performances earned Kenneth numerous Genie Award nominations, and eventually a best supporting actor Genie for his role in the 1996 film Margaret’s Museum. Most U.S. entertainment reviewers say he’s “best known” for his portrayal of Windom Earle in Twin Peaks. But I think Kenneth’s talent shone brightest when he was on stage.
I never got to see Kenneth at Stratford during the seven seasons he worked there. But he didn’t need the Festival Theatre stage to deliver Shakespeare. I remember nights – here in Uxbridge – when he’d simply set up a flat and props in a warehouse space on Brock Street or upstairs at the Legion.
Then, as a fundraiser, Kenneth would draw slips of paper from a request jar, asking him to perform Hamlet’s “To be or not to be,” Lear’s “Nothing can come from nothing” or, my favourite, Henry V’s “Saint Crispin’s Day” speech to his troops on the eve of battle in France.
“And gentlemen in England now abed / Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,” Kenneth recited as he transformed the room into the battlefield at Agincourt. “And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks / That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day,” he’d finish with a flourish inspiring us to become his band of brothers.
We were mesmerized.
Even as Kenneth battled his cancer to make it to his 80th birthday and his marriage to Lynne, the couple posted more excerpts of a quintessential performer worshipping the words of playwrights and poets on life and dying.
My favourite, posted recently, showed Kenneth modelling a 40-year-old suit jacket accented by Lynne’s artwork. And as he displayed his new gift, he adlibbed a song about its origin and artistic flair.
Support, remembrances and now condolences have flooded local social media for Lynne and surviving family. For me, Christmas without Kenneth will be toughest, not seeing him don cap and scarf for his annual reading of A Child’s Christmas.
His past recitals will have to sustain us, those who’ve known the gift of his voice in-person.
