BFF-04 Canadian actress and activist Shirley Douglas dead at 86

212

ZCZC

BFF-04

ENTERTAINMENT-CANADA-US-FILM-DOUGLAS-SUTHERLAND

Canadian actress and activist Shirley Douglas dead at 86

TORONTO, Canada, April 6, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Canadian actress and civil
rights activist Shirley Douglas died Sunday at the age of 86, her son actor
Kiefer Sutherland said.

Douglas died following a bout of pneumonia, Sutherland wrote on Twitter,
specifying that it was not related to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“My mother was an extraordinary woman who led an extraordinary life,” wrote
Sutherland, best known as agent Jack Bauer in the TV thriller “24.”

“Sadly she had been battling for her health for quite some time and we, as
a family, knew this day was coming,” he wrote.

Douglas spent her acting career between Canada and Hollywood, where she
worked with big-name directors such as Stanley Kubrick and David Cronenberg.

She is also known for campaigning for several progressive causes, including
the civil rights movement and the Black Panthers in the 1960s and later
defending Canada’s public health care system.

Douglas had three children, two of them — including Kiefer — with
Canadian-born Hollywood actor Donald Sutherland.

She was the daughter of Tommy Douglas, the founder of Canada’s medicare
system and a one-time prime minister of the western Canadian province of
Saskatchewan.

BSS/AFP/GMR/1005 hrs