Michael Bradshaw was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

/Canadian  actor.

Early life in England

Born in Plumstead

Plumstead

Plumstead is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich. Plumstead is a multi cultural area with large Asian and Afro-Caribbean communities, in similarity to local areas such as Woolwich and Thamesmead...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, he grew up Boxmoor

Boxmoor

Boxmoor, or Boxmoor Village, is a district of Dacorum in Hertfordshire, England. It is now part of Hemel Hempstead. It is a district of mainly nineteenth century housing and meadowland, repeatedly cut through by transport links from London to the The Midlands....

, Hemel Hempstead

Hemel Hempstead

Hemel Hempstead is a town in Hertfordshire in the East of England, to the north west of London and part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2001 Census was 81,143 ....

, Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...

 to the north west of London. He trained as a printer for most of his teen years at John Dickinson Stationery Limited, except for two years mandatory service in the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 armed forces ("national service

National service

National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...

") which he served in the Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

, stationed at RAF Ternhill

RAF Ternhill

RAF Ternhill is a small Royal Air Force station at Ternhill in Shropshire, near the towns of Newport and Market Drayton. The station, home of Volunteer Gliding Squadron 632, was a helicopter base but is now principally used as an outpost for the tri-service helicopter training establishment at RAF...

 near Market Drayton

Market Drayton

Market Drayton is a small market town in north Shropshire, England. It is on the River Tern, between Shrewsbury and Stoke-on-Trent, and was formerly known as "Drayton in Hales" and earlier simply as "Drayton" ....

, Shropshire

Shropshire

Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...

. During this time Bradshaw was working in non-professional theatre in his home town, having also been a talented boy soprano for his local church, St. John's, Boxmoor, even going on local tours.

Canada

Bradshaw left England for Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 in 1956 where he flourished in theatre working with the Player's Guild of Hamilton and winning the Best Actor in the Dominion of Canada Award at the Dominion Drama Festival

Dominion Drama Festival

The Dominion Drama Festival was an organisation in Canada that sought to promote amateur theatre across the country. It lasted, in one form or another, from 1932 until 1978.- Founding :...

 for his portrayal of Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons

A Man for All Seasons

A Man for All Seasons is a play by Robert Bolt. An early form of the play had been written for BBC Radio in 1954, and a one-hour live television version starring Bernard Hepton was produced in 1957 by the BBC, but after Bolt's success with The Flowering Cherry, he reworked it for the stage.It was...

. He also performed in the Shaw Festival

Shaw Festival

The Shaw Festival is a major Canadian theatre festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, the second largest repertory theatre company in North America...

 during its early years, most notably in the 1966 production of "Misalliance

Misalliance

Misalliance is a play written in 1909–1910 by George Bernard Shaw.Misalliance takes place entirely on a single Saturday afternoon in the conservatory of a large country house in Hindhead, Surrey in Edwardian era England. It is a continuation of some of the ideas on marriage that he expressed in...

" in which he played The pilot, Joey Percival.

United States

He went on to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, first performing at area theatre's in Buffalo and then was cast in the first national touring company of Man of La Mancha

Man of La Mancha

Man of La Mancha is a musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth century masterpiece Don Quixote...

 with José Ferrer

José Ferrer

José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...

, which toured the U.S. for the better part of 1968. Bradshaw was on Broadway three times between the 1960s and 1970s including roles in 'Portrait of a Queen' with Dame Dorothy Tutin and Barry England

Barry England

Barry England was an English novelist and playwright. He is chiefly known for his 1969 thriller Figures in a Landscape, which was nominated for the inaugural Booker Prize.-Life and work:...

's Conduct Unbecoming

Conduct Unbecoming (play)

Conduct Unbecoming is a play by Barry England. The plot concerns a scandal in a British regiment stationed in India in the 1880s. The widow of a heroic officer is assaulted by an unrevealed comrade in arms and an investigation takes place to determine his identity.It was first staged in May 1969 at...

 as Major Lionoel Roach for which he nominated for a Tony Award

Tony Award

The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

.

In the 1970s he served as Production Stage Manager for the Starlight Theatre (Kansas City)

Starlight Theatre (Kansas City)

Starlight Theatre is a 7,947-seat outdoor theatre in Kansas City, Missouri, United States that stages touring Broadway shows and concerts. It is one of three remaining self-producing outdoor theatres in the U.S.-History:...

  and then retired for most of the 1980s, working again as a printer and focusing on his family.

In the late 80s he began acting again, starting off small, appearing in community theatre and even directing several High School productions. Quickly he began appearing in smaller productions around the New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

 area, especially Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 where he worked extensively during the 1990s, most notably for the Lyric Stage Company Boston, Lyric West and Huntington Stage Company. He gained quite a reputation in the area, also performing for the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company

Commonwealth Shakespeare Company

The Commonwealth Shakespeare Company was formed in 1996 by artistic director Steven Maler and associate Joan Moynagh to bring free, outdoor Shakespeare to the people of the city of Boston. Since 1996, CSC has produced one full Shakespeare production each summer starting with A Midsummer Night's...

's 1997 performance of Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...

 in Boston Common. He worked in the first ever Boston Theater Marathon

Boston Theater Marathon

The Boston Theater Marathon is a Boston based charity theatre event consisting of 50 plays performed by 50 different theatre companies in 10 hours....

 and in 1998 he was nominated for the prestigious Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Actor in a Small Company.

Later life

It was around this time that he began to work in small roles in film, television and voice over work. He did the play by play voice over commentary for the Looking Glass Technologies British Open Championship Golf

British Open Championship Golf

British Open Championship Golf is a 1997 sports video game developed and published by Looking Glass Technologies. A simulation of The Open Championship, it allows the player to engage in multiple forms of golf, including stroke play and fourball. The player competes at reproductions of the Royal...

 Computer Game in 1997, worked on the PBS documentary "Africans in America" appeared on "Unsolved Mysteries

Unsolved Mysteries

Unsolved Mysteries is an American television program, hosted by Robert Stack, from 1987 until 2002, and later by Dennis Farina, starting in 2008...

" among other programmes. He also did small roles or extra work in the films The Crucible

The Crucible

The Crucible is a 1952 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatization of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism, when the US government blacklisted accused communists...

 (1996), "The Spanish Prisoner

The Spanish Prisoner

The Spanish Prisoner is a 1997 American suspense film, written and directed by David Mamet and starring Campbell Scott, Steve Martin, Rebecca Pidgeon, Ben Gazzara and Ricky Jay...

" (1997), "The Proposition

The Proposition

The Proposition is a 2005 western film directed by John Hillcoat and written by screenwriter and musician Nick Cave. It stars Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson, John Hurt, Danny Huston and David Wenham. The film's production completed in 2004 and was followed by a wide 2005 release in...

" (1998) and "State and Main

State and Main

State and Main is a 2000 comedy film, written and directed by David Mamet and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rebecca Pidgeon, about the on-location production in Waterford, Vermont of a film called The Old Mill...

"(2000)

In the early 2000s he continued theater work around the country having been in Nick Dear

Nick Dear

Nick Dear is a writer for stage, screen and radio. He received a BAFTA for his first screenwriting credit, a TV adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion....

's "The Art of Success off Broadway in New York and in Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...

' "The Night of the Iguana

The Night of the Iguana

The Night of the Iguana is a stageplay written by American author Tennessee Williams, based on his 1948 short story. The play premiered on Broadway in 1961. Two film adaptations have been made, including the Academy Award-winning 1964 film of the same name....

" at the Dallas Theater Center

Dallas Theater Center

The Dallas Theater Center is a major regional theater in Dallas, Texas . It produces classic, contemporary and new plays. The theater was based in the Kalita Humphreys Theater, a building designed by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, from 1959 to 2009...

 in Dallas, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

. He was scheduled to take part in the Washington D.C. premiere of The Invention of Love

The Invention of Love

The Invention of Love is a 1997 play by Tom Stoppard portraying the life of poet A.E. Housman, focusing specifically on his personal life and love for a college classmate. The play is written from the viewpoint of Housman dealing with his memories towards the end of his life and contains many...

 but due to illness was forced to withdraw, the first time he'd ever been forced to leave a production in his career. His illness was diagnosed as cancer, and it grew worse until he finally succumbed on 13 December 2001 in a Newton, New Jersey

Newton, New Jersey

Newton is a town in Sussex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the town population was 8,244. It is the county seat of Sussex County....

 hospital.

Family

• Patricia Stevenson: 1960-1970. Had one son, Jeff.
• Rosemary Harvey: 1970-1976. Had one son, Michael.
• Patricia Hitz: 1976 until his death in 2001. Had two sons, Joshua and Jonathan.

External links