Veteran Canadian filmmaker and producer Alvin Rakoff, best known for directing Laurence Olivier in ‘A Voyage Round My Father’, has passed away at the age of 97. The cause of death was “old age,” as confirmed by his agent to Variety. Rakoff died on October 12 at home, surrounded by his family.
With a career spanning over four decades, Rakoff was involved in more than 100 television, film, and stage productions, as well as writing novels. His representatives noted that he was still working into his 90s.
Born in Toronto in 1927, Rakoff was the third of seven children to Sam and Pearl Rakoff, who owned a dry goods shop. However, after the Great Depression hit in 1929, the family fell into poverty, an experience he later recounted in his novel ‘Baldwin Street’.
Rakoff’s passion for film and television was sparked at the age of 6 when he saw his first film in a theatre. He went on to earn a degree in psychology from the University of Toronto before starting out as a journalist. However, watching Marlon Brando in a stage production of Tennessee Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ shifted his focus. After seeing the performance, Rakoff vowed to pursue a career in show business.
He began working as a writer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which eventually led him to the U.K. at the age of 25.
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