Veteran Canadian actress Alberta Watson passed away over the weekend. She was 60.
Alberta Watson’s agent Pam Winter confirmed the untimely death in a statement to ET Canada. “It is the case, sadly. Alberta passed away on Saturday evening at Kensington Hospice in Toronto”, she said. “Her husband Ken was by her side. We await details of a memorial service for her.”
The noted actress had a long career that spanned nearly four decades. In that time she appeared on such television series as King Of Kensington, Hill Street Blues, Buck James, The Equalizer, Law & Order, The Outer Limits, La Femme Nikita and Canadian drama The Newsroom (not to be confused with the HBO series of the same name)
Though, arguably, her most recognised role came in 2005, when she joined the cast of Fox’s hit series 24 for its fourth season. She played Erin Driscoll, the new director of the Los Angeles Counter Terrorist Unit; the character was a polarising one given her first action was to fire Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland).
Following that 24 role, Watson would return to US television in The CW’s Nikita, a reboot of the 1990s series La Femme Nikita in which she also starred. Alberta Watson played Senator Madeline Pierce in a handful of episodes across the show’s first two seasons. The series turned out to be her last acting role.
Tributes to the late actress have started pouring in from her friends and co-workers. Former 24 executive producer and helmer Jon Cassar – who directed Watson in a number of episodes of the Fox series – took to Twitter to say: “RIP Alberta Watson. Beautiful, smart and ever so courageous. I’ll miss her.”
