Timothy Irving Frederick Findley was born on October 30, 1930, and passed away on June 20, 2002. He was a Canadian novelist and playwright. People also called him Tiff or Tiffy, which are short for the first letters of his name.

Biography

Timothy Findley was one of three sons. He was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Allan Gilmour Findley, a stockbroker, and his wife, Margaret Maude Bull. His father’s father was president of Massey-Harris, a company that makes farming equipment. He grew up in the wealthy Rosedale neighborhood of Toronto. He attended St. Andrew's College, a boarding school, but left during grade 10 for health reasons. He studied dance and acting and had a successful career as an actor before becoming a writer. He was part of the original Stratford Festival company in the 1950s, acting with Alec Guinness. He also performed in the first production of Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker at the Edinburgh Festival and played Peter Pupkin in Sunshine Sketches, a television adaptation of Stephen Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.

Although Findley had said he was homosexual as a teenager, he married actress and photographer Janet Reid in 1959. Their marriage lasted only three months and ended in divorce or annulment two years later. He later became the domestic partner of writer Bill Whitehead, whom he met in 1962.

Through his friend Thornton Wilder, Findley became close to actress Ruth Gordon. Gordon’s work as a screenwriter and playwright inspired Findley to try writing. After publishing his first short story in the Tamarack Review, Gordon encouraged him to write more. He left acting in the 1960s to focus on writing.

Findley’s first two novels, The Last of the Crazy People (1967) and The Butterfly Plague (1969), were first published in Britain and the United States after Canadian publishers rejected them. His third novel, The Wars (1977), was highly praised and won the Governor General’s Award for English-language fiction. The novel was later adapted into a film titled The Wars in 1983 by director Robin Phillips.

Findley received many awards, including the Governor General’s Award, the Canadian Authors Association Award, an ACTRA Award, the Order of Ontario, and the Trillium Book Award. In 1985, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. He was a founding member and chair of the Writers’ Union of Canada and a president of the Canadian chapter of PEN International.

Findley’s writing style was called Southern Ontario Gothic, a term he created. His work was influenced by ideas from a type of psychology called Jungian psychology. Common themes in his books included mental illness, gender, and sexuality. Many of his stories focused on characters trying to make moral and ethical choices in difficult situations. His characters often had painful secrets that caused them to struggle with their emotions.

Findley and Whitehead worked together on several documentary projects in the 1970s, including the television miniseries The National Dream and Dieppe 1942. They won an ACTRA Award for Best Writing in a Television Documentary in 1975 for The National Dream.

Findley briefly mentioned his homosexuality on a radio program called The Shulman File in the 1970s, surprising the host, Morton Shulman.

Findley and Whitehead lived at Stone Orchard, a farm near Cannington, Ontario, and in the south of France. In 1996, the French government honored him by making him a Chevalier de l’Ordre des arts et des lettres.

Findley also wrote plays for television and the stage. His most successful play, Elizabeth Rex, premiered at the Stratford Festival and won a Governor General’s Award. His 1993 play The Stillborn Lover was adapted into a television film called External Affairs, which aired on CBC Television in 1999. Shadows, first performed in 2001, was his last completed work. He also helped young Canadian writers, including Marnie Woodrow and Elizabeth Ruth.

In his later years, poor health caused him to move to Stratford, Ontario. Stone Orchard was later bought by Canadian dancer Rex Harrington.

In 2002, Findley was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame. He died on June 20, 2002, in Brignoles, France, near his home in Cotignac. A biography titled Tiff: A Life of Timothy Findley, written by Sherrill Grace, was published in 2020.

Findley and his play The Stillborn Lover were featured in the 1992 documentary film Timothy Findley: Anatomy of a Writer, directed by Terence Macartney-Filgate.

Quotations

• "When we stop treating animals like trash, we will stop harming each other. However, the highways show that people do not care about death, as long as it is not their own. I do not understand this attitude of the human mind. I feel no connection to it. People drive in a way that makes it seem as though they do not believe in death. They only care about their own lives, not the lives of others. I feel strong anger when strangers on a public road threaten me carelessly." – from 1965 journal, at p. 16 of Journeyman: Travels of a Writer.

• "A myth is not a lie, but rather the truth made larger. Its gestures cover more ground, its voice is heard from far away, and its face has stronger features than reality would dare to create." – from 1992 speech, reproduced at p. 75 of Journeyman: Travels of a Writer.