Doug Hellier

Along with acting ability, Doug Hellier was gifted with good looks and personality. He became Vancouver’s leading male model by the age of 20 and stayed involved with fashion over the years, including producing the first fashion show at the QET.

 Doug began his professional acting career with Everyman Theatre, and went on to the Avon Theatre. His stage roles over the years were varied. Some of his more memorable performances were in Noah, Amphitryon 38, John Loves Mary and Detective Story.  He was also part the first play on the QET stage, a Barnstormer’s production of Once More with Feeling. 

 In the mid-fifties, Doug obtained the rights to the first Canadian showing of The Diary of Anne Frank.  With lifelong friends Max Power and Ben Kopelow, in their production company The Barnstormers, he produced Anne at the Georgia Auditorium.  Opening night coincided with a Vancouver snowstorm and only 80 people watched the show.  The papers loved it, though, and the rest of the run was sold out.

 Doug was deeply involved in the infamous 1958 production of Tobacco Road at the Avon as an actor and as promotions manager.  When the police received anonymous complaints about nudity on stage they declared the show “lewd and obscene,” and arrested the cast in the middle of a performance.  The audience waited until Doug and the others posted bail-and returned to finish the show.   Although the company got an injunction against further police interference, a judge decided the play could only proceed if it was “cleaned up.”  The company refused to revise the play. As manager, Doug Hellier was quoted as saying, “Censorship as demanded would mean the text of the show would be completely lost and we felt we must present the play as written or not at all.”[Schenectady Gazette, 01/22/1958]  A well publicized trial followed, with Erskine Caldwell flying in to attend.  Doug, Charles Nelson and Dorothy Davies were charged and convicted.

 In later years Doug was an active member of the Parkinson Society of BC and the ALS Society of BC.  He died on November 6, 2006