Actor the classic boy next door
Canadian charmed legions of fans as Gilbert Blythe in Anne of Green Gables
Even as a child, Canadian actor Jonathan Crombie loved the theatre.
His sister Carrie Crombie recalls him watching Fiddler on the Roof, and listening to Oklahoma. Song and dance was one of his first loves, she says. “From a very young age, that’s always been a part of him.”
And so it would be for decades, as Crombie went from a young 1980s heartthrob in CBC’s Anne of Green Gables to a leading man on Broadway in The Drowsy Chaperone in 2007.
But Crombie’s lengthy television and stage career was cut short last week. On Wednesday, the 48-yearold passed away in New York City after a brain hemorrhage. Friends, family and fellow actors are now mourning the loss of a warm, thoughtful man they remember as a talented, yet modest, performer.
Toronto-based actor Tracey Hoyt worked with Crombie on several early Canadian versions of The Drowsy Chaperone, and has said he was a “surgeon of comedy,” with a specific and precise technique.
Despite his stint in the musical’s leading role on Broadway, appearances on stages in Toronto, at the Stratford Festival and throughout the U.S., and time spent showcasing his comedy chops on the Canadian television series Comedy Now! in 1998, Crombie is still best remembered for his earliest role in the 1985 Anne of Green Gables miniseries.
He charmed audiences as redhaired Anne Shirley’s eventual love interest, the young Gilbert Blythe, a role he reprised in two sequels in 1987 and 2000.
Anne of Green Gables producer Kevin Sullivan says Crombie was the “quintessential boy next door.”
“There were literally legions of young women around the world who saw him as kind of the perfect boyfriend and many people fell in love with him,” he says. “But on a personal level, he was as generous and sensitive and ambitious in some ways as the person that he played on screen.”
Gilbert Blythe was a role he was particularly proud of, Crombie’s sister Carrie told the Star over the phone from New York City. “And so many people continue, after 30 years now, to go back to that — and still call him Gilbert,” she says.
Sullivan says Crombie didn’t know he had a “unique gift” for acting and was thrown into the industry at the age of 17 after being discovered in a high school play during an “exhaustive” search for actors, which included Jason Priestley.
Crombie’s last onstage role was in the world premiere of Eric Schmiedl’s Benediction, which wrapped up its run on March 1 at the Denver Theater Center in Colorado.
He was also the son of David Crombie, the mayor of Toronto from 1972 to1978 and a federal cabinet minister under Brian Mulroney.
Crombie’s organs were donated, his sister notes. “There is some consolation in it,” she said. “It is helpful knowing people will be living on because of him.” With files from Star wire services