Helen Shaver

Helen Shaver (born February 24, 1951) is a Canadian actress and film and television director. She has received a Saturn Award nomination, among other honours. 2Early life Shaver was born and raised, with five sisters, in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada, a small city located near London, Ontario. As a child, she suffered from chronic rheumatic fever and, between the ages of five and twelve, was forced to spend six months of each year in bed or in hospitals, which she said fostered her introspective side. She attended the Banff School of Fine Arts as a teenager and studied acting at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. 2Career After roles in such Canadian features as Outrageous! (1977), Starship Invasions (1977), Who Has Seen the Wind (1977) and High Ballin’ (1978), Shaver won a Canadian Film Award as Best Lead Actress opposite Tom Berenger (for her performance as "Ann MacDonald") in In Praise of Older Women (1978). Shaver was one of the stars of director Sam Peckinpah's final film, 1983's The Osterman Weekend. In 1985, Shaver starred in Desert Hearts as a 1950s university professor who falls in love with another woma