Roberta Maxwell

Roberta Maxwell (born c. 1942, Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian actress.

Roberta Maxwell began studying for the stage around the age of 12. She joined John Clark for 2 years as the child co-host of his Junior Magazine series for CBC Television. She first performed at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in 1956.

She appeared as Ursula in Much Ado About Nothing, Lady Anne in Richard III, Olivia in Twelfth Night, and Anne in The Merry Wives of Windsor, before going on to England, where she spent three years in repertory. She made her West End debut with Robert Morley and Molly Picon in A Majority of One.

In 1982, she starred as Rosalind in the Stratford Festival's stage production of Shakespeare's As You Like It, a production which was videotaped and telecast on Canadian television in 1983. In 2011, she played the duchess of York in Richard III.

She debuted on Broadway in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1968, going on to five more plays with the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1974 she was back on Broadway playing the role of Jill in Equus, which starred Anthony Hopkins.

Those, and many more plays, took her on to a successful television and film career. She was particularly praised for her performance as Lavinia Mannon in the 1978 PBS adaption of Mourning Becomes Electra. In 2009 and 2010 she appeared in two episodes of the Syfy series Warehouse 13.

• 1970: Obie Award, Whistle in the Dark
• 1971: Drama Desk Award, Slag (David Hare's first play)
• 1977: Obie Award, Ashes (with Brian Murray for Joseph Papp and Manhattan Theatre Club)