Catherine McKinnon
singer/actress
Catherine McKinnon (born May 14, 1944) is a Canadian actress and folk/pop singer.
Early life and education
Born in Saint John, New Brunswick, McKinnon began as a child performer, making her debut radio broadcast at age eight and her television appearance at age 12. She subsequently studied music at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax.
Career
In the 1960s she was a regular on CBC radio and television, including the Halifax based CBC television program Singalong Jubilee. In 1964, she popularized the song "Farewell to Nova Scotia" when she used it as the theme song for the Singalong Jubilee.
McKinnon's first and biggest selling album, Voice of an Angel, was a collection of folk material, but she has also recorded ballads, torch songs, and songs by notable pop songwriters such as Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot and Buffy Sainte-Marie. She has also been a stage actress, appearing in Canadian productions of Turvey, The Wizard of Oz, and My Fair Lady.
Personal life
McKinnon married actor and comedian Don Harron in 1969; the couple divorced in 2003.
Her sister, Patrician Anne McKinnon, began her singing career on CBC Television at age 13 and had a Canadian hit single entitled "Blue Lipstick" in 1965. "Blue Lipstick" was written especially for her by American composer P. F. Sloan, who also wrote for Terry Black.
“Catherine McKinnon” enters the record as singer/actress. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Catherine, McKinnon and singer can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Catherine McKinnon” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Catherine, McKinnon and singer provides the most credible route into that argument.
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 Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5052826. VIAF identifies the subject as 106101045. The Library of Congress control number is no2006090313. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1964, 1969 and 2003.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Catherine McKinnon” 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.