Dee Cannon

From Matthew Modine to Cynthia Erivo, the list of actors coached by Dee Cannon reads like the proverbial ‘International Who’s Who’. She was equally open to working with newcomers whenever gaps could be found in a busy travel schedule that took her from London to LA and into studios, theatres and movie sets all over the world.

“Truthful’’ and “rigorous’’ are words frequently used to describe her sessions, but always qualified by acknowledgement of her tremendous capacity for nurturing and encouragement.

Dee Cannon was born in London to father, David, a property developer and mother Doreen, the highly respected actor, director and head of acting at RADA and Drama Centre London, who remained a powerful and lifelong influence on her daughter’s career.

Cannon trained as an actor at ArtsEd and subsequently with Uta Hagen at the HB Studio, New York (where her mother had also studied). In 1993, she followed in her mother’s footsteps with an invitation to teach and direct at RADA. As senior acting teacher at the academy for 17 years, she directed more than 30 plays there.

An enthusiast for travel and international culture, Cannon’s work included freelancing on major theatre, television and film productions around the world, along with workshops and masterclasses in London, Los Angeles, New York, Stockholm, Berlin, Gothenburg, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Bulgaria and Manila. She published three books, the bestselling In Depth Acting, and two collections of Modern Monologues.

Interviewed for The Stage’s Training Q&A feature in 2018, Cannon stressed the importance of actors mastering modern techniques such as self-taping, but also of drawing inspiration from Hagen and Stella Adler (who ran her own influential acting studio in New York) noting that “although they are no longer with us, they have left their legacy”.

On the evidence of the many actors around the world who list her as a positive and powerful influence on their careers, the same can be said of Cannon.

Dee Cannon was born on June 6, 1962, and died on September 28, aged 58.