Marilyn Lightstone is a powerful artist. She is one of Canada’s best-known actresses, a painter, a podcaster, a writer and a singer. Perhaps most recognized as Miss Stacey, Anne Shirley’s mentor and confidante in CBC’s hugely popular televised version of Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Green Gables the Sequel and Road to Avonlea, Lightstone has been a fixture in Canadian film and theatre through a career that spans six decades.
Beyond her accomplishments in the arts, Lightstone, whose partner, Moses Znaimer, is co-founder of the Citytv television network and founder and CEO of ZoomerMedia, speaks passionately about the need to give back to the community. While she is reluctant to be called a “philanthropist,” she does support a wide variety of causes, including healthcare organizations and charities that help families living with food insecurity, homelessness or abuse. Giving “cannot be a once-a-year thing when so many people are suffering,” Lightstone says. “Missions that feed people, places that provide shelter to women and children who are abused in their homes, mental health assistance for kids—these are crucial services, and our support cannot be ‘once in a while.’”
Lightstone grew up in postwar Montreal. Her father was a printer, and her mother, Sophie, was a source of strength for her as she pursued her artistic aspirations. She attended McGill University, and upon graduating was accepted to the National Theatre School, which was then only a year old. (Her experiences there and during her acclaimed stage career, which took her from Canada to New York and Los Angeles and beyond, would one day inspire her first novel, Rogues and Vagabonds.)
It’s all down to his belief in me for more than 64 years.
Marilyn Lightstone, on longtime partner Moses Znaimer
It was at McGill in 1960 that she met Znaimer. Determined to go to theatre school, she realized that “all my performing at McGill had been in student-written musicals,” Lightstone recalls. “I had never been in a straight play, and I figured if I was going to audition for a theatre school, I had better act in one as quickly as possible.” She auditioned for an English department production of George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman, figuring that she would be perfect for the lead role. Director Frank Faragoah disagreed, and she got turned down.
That disappointment, however, had a silver lining. Still looking for a part in a well-known play, she turned to a “far more adventurous” acting group at McGill called the Players Club. She won a part in its production of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood—and also met Znaimer, who was trying his hand at stage acting at the club. “Had it not been for my being turned down by Frank Faragoah, we would never have met,” Lightstone says. And today, she still credits much of her success to her relationship with Znaimer. “It’s all down to his belief in me for over 64 years,” she says.
Beyond her well-known work in the Anne of Green Gables series, Lightstone has garnered critical acclaim for her work in film, which dates back more than two decades before the first Anne broadcast in 1985. She won the Genie Award for Best Actress for her role in 1975’s Lies My Father Told Me and received rave reviews for her lead role in 1978’s In Praise of Older Women—a film so raw and scandalous for its time that the Ontario Censor Board made radical cuts to it before its release.
On the topic of “older women,” Lightstone makes no bones about her dissatisfaction with the way they are treated not only in the entertainment industry, but also in everyday life. She regularly hears from fans who describe their visceral response to her work—both past and present—and yet she says women over the age of 40 often have to invent their own roles to remain visible.
Now in her 80s, Lightstone is still inventing. Her current projects are a literary podcast, Marilyn Lightstone Reads, and Vision TV’s Friday night musical singalong, Your All Time Classic Hit Parade. The latter might sound quaint and old-fashioned—a family-friendly weekly show inspired by the Great American Songbook—but over its seven seasons it has attracted viewers of all generations, Lightstone says, and she is working on an eighth season.
Meanwhile, she launched her podcast in September 2020. It’s a book club for all ages, and Lightstone’s readings of classic novels (including Anne of Green Gables) have inspired audiences from far and wide. (The podcast has been downloaded a million times and counting.) She is currently working on reigniting appreciation of the full literary works of Lucy Maud Montgomery beyond the Anne canon, so that her international audience can come to understand the literary depth and strength of one of Canada’s greatest authors.
Between her podcast and her musical variety show, Lightstone has attracted a new following. She notes, for example, an email from an Israeli artist who used to live in Canada and likes to work to the sound of Lightstone’s voice on the podcast. Middle-aged people who remember the music on Hit Parade, she says, have told her they watch the show with their parents as a way of reconnecting with the older generation. “It’s so great that they choose to watch it together,” she adds.
“Marilyn has been blessed with incredible creativity and talent and energy, and she is constantly thinking of new ideas in all media,” says longtime friend and colleague Joel Goldberg, an award-winning TV producer.
“Partner this creativity with open-arms generosity and love for the creative people she surrounds herself with, and you have a unique force in the arts,” Goldberg adds. “We all love Marilyn.”
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