Bruno Gerussi
Bruno Gerussi was born in Medicine Hat, Alberta in 1928, He received a scholarship for the Banff Centre for The Arts in 1947 which launched a career on stage, radio and especially CBC TV invited to join the Stratford Festival, and stayed until 1965, playing many of the major roles of the Shakespearean canon including Feste in Twelfth Night, Romeo to Julie Harris’ Juliet, Ariel in The Tempest and Mark Antony in Julius Caesar. He also appeared in Michael Langham ‘s celebrated Henry V (1956). He acted in numerous stage productions in Canada and the United States before joining CBC Radio that led ultimately to television. One of his earliest TV appearances was as Feste in a 1962 TV production of Twelfth Night. After a two-year stint with his own nationally broadcast mid-morning CBC Radio show Gerussi, Words and Music, Gerussi won the lead role on the popular CBC family adventure series The Beachcombers and was star of the series for 19 years (from 1971-90). Gerussi also hosted the popular CBC cooking program Celebrity Cooks in the late 1970s. After Beachcombers, he occasionally returned to stage, acting with the Arts Club Theatre among other companies. Bruno Gerussi died on 21 November 1995 in Vancouver .
Honours
Gerussi received a Gemini Award nomination for Best Performance by a
Lead Actor in a Continuing Dramatic Role in 1990 for the final season of The
Beachcombers.
He won the Geminis’ Earle Grey Award posthumously for Lifetime Achievement in 1996. His children Rico & Tina accepted it on his behalf.
