CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Ben Carlson

Canadian actor

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ116961533
Source-derived summary

Ben Carlson is a Canadian actor. Primarily associated with stage roles at the Stratford Festival, he won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Actor in a Television Film or Miniseries for his performance as Petruchio in the CBC Presents the Stratford Festival adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew.

Early life

Carlson began to pursue a music degree at McGill University in Montreal when he decided to change his career path to studying theatre instead. He changed schools and entered into the theatre program at George Brown College where he graduated.

Career

Carlson was a Dora Mavor Moore Award nominee for Best Actor in a Play in 1995 for Hay Fever, and won a Jeff Award in 2007 for his performance as Hamlet at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. His other noted performances have included David Cameron in the Canadian production of The Audience, Walter Shirley in the 2008 miniseries Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning and Wiley in the film My Dog Vincent.

Personal life

He is the son of actors Leslie Carlson and Patricia Hamilton and is married to stage actress Deborah Hay since 2010.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Ben Carlson” as canadian actor. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1995, 2007, 2008, 2010—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Carlson, Canadian and actor can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as canadian actor. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q116961533. VIAF identifies the subject as 66148449597015690645. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1995, 2007, 2008 and 2010.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ben Carlson”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ben Carlson primary sources, Ben Carlson archive and Carlson research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ben Carlson”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Ben Carlson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.