Drew Thompson

Andrew Ruthven Stovin Thompson, known professionally as Drew Thompson, was born on March 9, 1922, in Ottawa, Ontario, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Thompson. He was educated at Trinity College, Toronto, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in June 1946. During his studies there, he appeared in a school production of Noël Coward's Family Album in 1946. A Canadian actor and director, Thompson built a career spanning theatre and television before his death on September 8, 1992, at Riverdale Hospital in Toronto.

Following his graduation, Thompson joined the Everyman Players, touring 71 cities across Western Canada and logging 120 performances during the 1946–1947 season. He subsequently became a member of the New Play Society in Toronto in 1947, performing at the Royal Ontario Museum Theatre in several productions, including Jack Chesney in Brandon Thomas's Charley's Aunt, David Wylie in J. M. Barrie's What Every Woman Knows, and Reverend Alexander Mill in George Bernard Shaw's Candida in 1948.

In 1948, Thompson and Arthur Sullivan co-founded the International Players theatre troupe in Kingston, Ontario, one of the earliest professional regional theatre organizations in Canada. The two co-directed the company together until Sullivan's death in 1953, after which Thompson assumed sole leadership. He continued to guide the organization through its final season in 1956, also serving as a leading comedian within the company. Among the productions he performed with the International Players were George Kelly's The Fatal Weakness and James Thurber's The Male Animal, both in 1949, and F. Hugh Herbert's The Moon Is Blue in 1954.

Thompson also maintained an active association with the Crest Theatre Foundation in Toronto, appearing in productions including Escapade and Dream Girl in 1954, The Ottawa Man in 1958, The Madwoman of Chaillot and Simon Says Get Married in 1961, and Roar Like a Dove in 1962.

His single Broadway appearance came in 1955, when he played Philippe Ploquin in the comedy The Heavenly Twins at the Booth Theatre. He had performed the same role earlier that year at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Thompson's television work was extensive, primarily within Canadian broadcasting. In 1954 he appeared in the episode The Lady from Normandy on the CBC anthology series Playbill. Throughout the 1950s he held the recurring role of Mendel Mantelpiece Mason on Howdy Doody. He returned to CBC television in 1960 for the teleplay The Remarkable Incident at Carson's Corners and made numerous appearances on the anthology program Festival during the 1960s. In 1962 he appeared in the episode That Gold Belongs to Uncle Angus on the anthology series Playdate. His later television credits included the CBC farce Operation Chicken in 1971, in which he played a nitwitted mounty, and a filmed production of Dion Boucicault's 1855 play Used Up, broadcast on the anthology series Purple Playhouse in 1973, in which he portrayed Parker the Butler.