“He was born in Wallasey (near Liverpool), but his home was on the stage.”
That’s how David Lloyd Austin was remembered by his daughter, Kate, at a memorial for the late actor-writer-director-producer last week at the Coast Capital Playhouse.
Austin died on March 24 at age 69 at Peace Arch Hospital, after being diagnosed with advanced pancreatic and liver cancer, following a gall bladder operation. Some 180 friends and former colleagues, many of them active participants in community theatre in Greater Vancouver, attended the March 30 memorial, hosted by surviving family members and White Rock Players Club.
They shared warm memories of productions with Austin – who also won fame and lucrative personal-appearance gigs around the globe thanks to his resemblance to former Russian premier Mikhail Gorbachev.
Starting with a well-remembered performance in Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky IV, his Gorbachev portrayals included appearances in Billy Crystal’s Midnight Train To Moscow and Leslie Nielsen’s Naked Gun.
The soft-spoken, gregarious and well-liked Austin, whose passion for detail and wide-ranging interests informed his own performances and his direction of others, had acted in or directed many community theatre productions in the Lower Mainland, including plays for the White Rock Players Club, the Langley Players, The Vagabond Players, Metro Theatre and Ellie King’s Royal Canadian Theatre Company.
His last performance was on the Coast Capital stage, where he appeared as Dr. Winchester in the White Rock Players Club thriller Who Walks In The Dark in 2012.
His partner of 23 years, Jackie Boatman, said the former Crescent Beach resident had experienced spells of ill health over the past year. He had cut short a visit to Mexico – where he frequently travelled to direct English-language dinner theatre – returning to the Peninsula on March 4.
“The one blessing is that he was spared the pain and suffering of extended cancer treatments,” she said.
In addition to his daughter and spouse, he is survived by son Neil, ex-wife Lynn and grandchildren Marra, Olivia and Landen.
Austin was also widely known for writing and directing interactive murder mystery shows.
Boatman said Austin caught the acting bug while participating in school productions in the Wallasey area.
Briefly a guitarist (he remembered sharing a stage and equipment with another up-and-coming Liverpool band, The Beatles), he emigrated to Canada in the late 1960s and later graduated from a two-year program in media arts at Sheridan College in Ontario.