The Canadian actress Sharon Acker, who played Lee Marvin’s unfaithful wife in the 1967 neo-noir masterpiece Point Blank and Monte Markham’s right-hand woman Della Street on a revival of Perry Mason in the 1970s, has passed away. She was 87 years old.
Who Was Sharon Acker?
According to her daughter Kim Everest, a casting director, Acker passed away on March 16 in a retirement community in her hometown of Toronto. In the January 1969 episode of Star Trek called “The Mark of Gideon,” Acker played Odona, a desperate woman from an overpopulated world.
She also played the wife of Dan Walling in a 1976–1977 CBS adaptation of Executive Suite, which featured Mitchell Ryan. (Acker and Ryan took on the roles William Holden and June Allyson played in the 1954 film.
In John Boorman’s Point Blank, after shooting Walker (Marvin) and leaving him for dead during their robbery of a messenger on Alcatraz, Acker’s character begins relations Mal Reese, played by John Vernon. Walker assaults her and shoots her in her bed when he comes back for vengeance and his portion of the loot.
The nine-season run of Perry Mason, created by Erle Stanley Gardner and featuring Raymond Burr as the legendary defence attorney and Barbara Hale as his devoted secretary, ended in 1957. In 1973, CBS revived the show with Markham and Acker. However, it was cancelled after only 15 episodes.
About Sharon Acker
On April 2, 1935, Sharon Eileen Acker was born in Toronto and was adopted at the age of nine. She went to Northern Vocational School, Davisville Public School, and John Fisher Public School. At Northern, she majored in painting and received her diploma in 1953.
She joined the Stratford Shakespeare Festival company in 1956 and appeared as Anne Page opposite future Star Trek co-star William Shatner in a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. She also portrayed the teacher Mrs. Stacey on a 1956 CBC adaptation of Anne of Green Gables.
Sharon Acker Career
She went to Europe to act with the Stratford company in Henry V, and while she was there, she made her big-screen debut in the 1957 film Lucky Jim, which also starred Terry-Thomas and Ian Carmichael. She was given a seven-year contract by British producers John and Ray Boulting who described her as “freshly appealing,” but she ended it after getting married and having a kid.
She frequently guest-starred on the acclaimed CBC series Festival at home, and in 1961, she starred opposite Sean Connery and Zoe Caldwell as Lady MacDuff in Paul Almond’s five-part Macbeth adaptation.