Henry WoolfSOM (20 January 1930 – 11 November 2021) was a British actor, theatre director, and teacher of acting, drama and theatre who lived in Canada. He was a longtime friend and collaborator of 2005 Nobel LaureateHarold Pinter, having stimulated Pinter to write his first play, The Room (1957), in 1956. Woolf served as a faculty member at the University of Saskatchewan from 1983 to 1997 and as artistic director of Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan from 1991 until 2001.
On British television, Woolf played the Man in Harold Pinter's one-man play Monologue (1973); parts in Rutland Weekend Television (1975–1976) and The Sweeney (1975); the Collector in the Doctor Who serial The Sun Makers (1977); served as the host of the 1970s pre-school British educational series Words and Pictures; and performed the role of Doctor Cornelius in the BBC adaptation of Prince Caspian (1989). He also played a role in Steptoe and Son (1973) as local gangster Frankie Barrow, a role which had originated in Steptoe and Son Ride Again (1973), the second film spin-off of the series.
Woolf joined the faculty of the University of Saskatchewan in 1983, was promoted to professor in 1990, also serving as head of its Drama Department, and received the university's Master Teacher Award in 1994, before retiring in 1997, at the Canadian mandatory retirement age of 67.[3] He served as artistic director of the annual summer Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan festival, in Saskatoon, from 1991[4] until his retirement from that position in 2001. In 2001 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Saskatchewan.
In 1978, with his wife, actress/director Susan Williamson, whom he married in 1968, Woolf moved to Canada where he took a teaching position at the University of Alberta Drama Department. By 1983, they had settled in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where they were resident until his death. They had four children.
Merritt, Susan Hollis. "Talking about Pinter". The Pinter Review: Collected Essays 2001 and 2002. Ed. Francis Gillen and Steven H. Gale (Tampa: U of Tampa P, 2002). 144–67. (On the Lincoln Center 2001: Harold Pinter Festival Symposia; Woolf participated in "Actors on Pinter", along with Blythe Danner and Liev Schreiber, as quoted.)
–––. "Monologue at Lincoln Center". Pinter Review (2002): 171–82. (Extended performance rev. (19 July 2001) incorporating interview with Woolf (the Man) and director Gari Jones, conducted in New York City, on 29 July 2001.)
Nathan, David. "First Impressions: Room for a Little One"[permanent dead link]. Jewish Chronicle 17 March 2000: 43. (Lead: "Actor Henry Woolf went to school with Harold Pinter and helped him get his [break?] in the theatre with 'The Room'. Now, Henry and Harold are working together again, David Nathan reports.") [Includes interview with Woolf. Viewable and printable version accessible only to paid subscribers.]
