- Stephen Forsyth is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist working in a wide range of media: photography, music, video, motion pictures, poetry and choreography. After graduating from McMaster University and studying at the London School of Economics, Forsyth went on to composing, recording and performing his music in French and Italian and starring in 8 of his 10 European films, ranging from spaghetti westerns, political, espionage to romantic comedies. While living in Italy he also worked as a freelance photojournalist photographing and interviewing many artists including Vittorio De Sica, Valerio Zurlini, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, the Bread and Puppet Theatre, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Marc Chagall.
After moving to New York City he continued working in a wide range of disciplines enabling him to create works of a unique personal vision. Live performances of his music and choreography and performance art have been presented in New York at the Joyce Theater, the Bottom Line, Reno Sweeney's, the Pyramid, Danceteria and others. Forsyth was co-founder of the Rebecca Blake Studio with photographic exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, The Nikon House, The Witkin Gallery, and others.
Stephen Forsyth's photographic work can be found in the permanent collections of major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, NYC, the George Eastman House Museum of Photography and Film and the Harvard Film Archives.
Forsyth's musical production and composition with lyrics, "Step out of Love", choreographed by Margo Sappington was performed worldwide by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago for 10 consecutive years and newly remounted for their 25th anniversary. Forsyth has released 2 albums of his music and lyrics on which include for the first time after 25 years his rejected theme song for the James Bond movie Never Say Never Again (1983) sung by Phyllis Hyman.
Forsyth was awarded a Canada Council Explorations Grant to create his award winning video work "Passages". In this work his piano compositions are the inspiration for a powerful weave of visuals, music and dance and PBS' Alive from Off Center (1984). Neil Seiling said of this work, "It is indeed one of the rare pieces that aspires to and pulls off a meeting of the performance world with television time and space."
These last years saw the worldwide reemergence of legendary Italian film director Mario Bava's cult favorite Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970) starring Forsyth, which has since been remastered and released on Blu-Ray.
With Forsyth's recent return to photography he has brought with him the experience he has so long curried and expressed in his video work and musical compositions. During the past years Forsyth has exhibited his photographs in Toronto at the Italian Cultural Institute, Fran Hill Gallery, Awol Gallery, Artscape Triangle Gallery, Redhead Gallery, 401 Richmond's Art in the Fall and Nuit Blanche. In 2016 he released a DVD titled "Stephen Forsyth, Piano Solos: Scenes from My Window" a synthesis of his piano solos, poetry and photography.
- IMDb mini biography by: Stephen Forsyth
- Canadian actor who enjoyed a short career in Italy. Unhappy with the roles he was being offered, he quit acting around 1970 and returned to his native Canada, where he started a new career as a music composer.
- Suffered two major strokes in December 2018, which left him wheelchair-bound.
- Graduated from McMaster University and attended courses at The London School of Economics.
- While he working in Paris as a singer/songwriter in the 1960s, he took what he thought would be a short vacation to Italy. While in Rome at a cafe on the Via Veneto, he was approached by a photographer who asked him if he could take his photograph to send to Gillette because they were looking for someone to do their print ads and television commercials for Europe. Forsythe ended up with an exclusive contract with Gillette. He then hired an acting agent and on his first appointment he was offered the lead in a film. Before starting to shoot the film, he was offered another part in a romantic comedy which was a big commercial success and served as a big boost to his movie acting career.
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