Helen Shaver

Helen Shaver (born February 24, 1951) is a Canadian actress and film and television director. After appearing in a number of Canadian movies, she received a Canadian Screen Award for Best Actress for her performance in the romantic drama In Praise of Older Women (1978). She later appeared in the films The Amityville Horror (1979), The Osterman Weekend (1983), Desert Hearts (1985), The Color of Money (1986), The Believers (1987), The Craft (1996),Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996) and Down River (2013). She received another Canadian Screen Award for Best Actress nomination for the 1986 drama film Lost!, and won a Best Supporting Actress for We All Fall Down (2000). Shaver also starred in some short-lived television series, including United States (1980) and Jessica Novak (1981), and from 1996 to 1999 starred in the Showtime horror series, Poltergeist: The Legacy, for which she received a Saturn Award for Best Actress on Television nomination.
In the mid-1990s, Shaver began working as a television director, directing more than 50 shows. She won three Directors Guild of Canada Awards, one Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Miniseries or TV Film, two Canadian Screen Awards, and three Women's Image Network Awards. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for directing the 1999 television movie Summer's End and in 2020 made her big screen debut with the drama film Happy Place. In 2004, Shaver was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.
Early life
Shaver was born and raised with five sisters in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada.
Career
After roles in such Canadian features as Outrageous! (1977), Starship Invasions (1977), Who Has Seen the Wind (1977) and High Ballin (1978), Shaver won a Canadian Film Award as Best Lead Actress opposite Tom Berenger (for her performance as "Ann MacDonald") in In Praise of Older Women (1978).
Shaver was one of the stars of director Sam Peckinpah's final film, 1983's The Osterman Weekend. In 1985, Shaver starred in Desert Hearts as a 1950s university professor who falls in love with another woman. Her performance, with co-star Patricia Charbonneau, drew critical praise and Shaver won the Bronze Leopard Award at the Locarno International Film Festival. Another prominent film performance during that time came in 1986 as the love interest of Paul Newman in his Oscar-winning portrayal of "Fast" Eddie Felson in Scorsese's The Color of Money, a sequel to 1961's The Hustler.
In 1980, Shaver starred with Beau Bridges in the short-lived NBC TV series United States developed by Larry Gelbart. A year later she starred in the short-lived drama series Jessica Novak. She was in the 1984 Canadian-made Countdown to Looking Glass. She subsequently appeared on such television shows as Hill Street Blues and T. J. Hooker. In 1990, she guest-starred as the murderer in Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo, and later that year co-starred on the short-lived series WIOU, playing a television journalist (as she also did on Jessica Novak). From 1996-1999, Shaver co-starred on the TV series Poltergeist: The Legacy, playing Dr. Rachel Corrigan, a widowed psychiatrist with an eight-year-old daughter who is helped by the Legacy in the pilot episode; her performance earned a Saturn Award nomination. In 2000, she won a Genie Award for her portrayal of a drug-addicted prostitute in the independent feature We All Fall Down.
Shaver made her feature-length directorial debut in 1999 with the television film Summer's End, which won an Emmy and earned her a directorial nomination. Shaver has also directed a number of television shows and cable movies, including The Outer Limits, Judging Amy, Joan of Arcadia, Medium, The OC, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The L Word, Jericho, Journeyman, Private Practice, The Unit, Crusoe, Orphan Black, Vikings (2013 TV series), 13 Reasons Why, and Westworld. In 2003 she won a Gemini award for Best Direction in a Dramatic Series for the Just Cause television series episode "Death's Details".
In 2004, Shaver was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.
Happy Place, her first theatrical feature film after directing for television, premiered at the Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival, and was screened at the 2020 Vancouver International Film Festival.
In 2021, Shaver picked up The Living Legend Tribute at the 23rd Women's Image Network Awards with fellow honoree JoJo Siwa its Rising Musical Star recipient.
In 2023, Shaver won the DGA award for directing episode 8 ("Who's There?") of Station Eleven.
Filmography
Film
Television
Director
References
External links
Canadian Film Encyclopedia: A publication of The Film Reference Library/a division of the Toronto International Film Festival Group
Actresses from Ontario
Canadian film actresses
Film directors from Ontario
Film producers from Ontario
Canadian television actresses
Canadian television directors
Canadian women film directors
Canadian voice actresses
Canadian women television directors
Directors Guild of America Award winners
Best Supporting Actress Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners
Living people
People from St. Thomas, Ontario
University of Victoria alumni
20th-century Canadian actresses
21st-century Canadian actresses
Best Actress Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners
Canadian women film producers
1951 births