Acting
Peter Spence
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Peter Spence is a Canadian film and television actor. He is most noted for his roles as the title character in the 1986 television film The Truth About Alex, one of the first television films ever to address the subject of gay youth, and as Jessie in the 1984 film Unfinished Business, for which he received a Genie Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the 6th Genie Awards in 1985. Spence's first role was in the CBC Television drama series Home Fires, as Sidney Lowe; during this time, he also appeared in episodes of Hangin' In and The Littlest Hobo. After Home Fires wrapped production in 1983, Spence enrolled at York University, but quickly dropped out after being cast in the films Unfinished Business and The Bay Boy. After completing those films, he moved to New York City to complete his acting education at Circle in the Square Theatre School, sharing an apartment at that time with his Bay Boy castmates Kiefer Sutherland and Leah Pinsent; in 1985, Spence appeared in the film Crazy Moon, playing Sutherland's brother for the second time. Following The Truth About Alex, Spence moved back to Toronto. He has continued to act, primarily in television films and series guest roles. He appeared most recently in the 2016 film The History of Love. Spence was also a story consultant for the 2019 film Tito.
Acting credits
6.7In the aftermath of a family tragedy, an aspiring author is torn between love for her childhood friend and the temptation of a mysterious outsider. Trying to escape the ghosts of her past, she is swept away to a house that breathes, bleeds… and remembers.
Crimson Peak
2015
6.8Ben Tyler has been diagnosed with cancer. With a grim chance of survival in the best case scenario even if he immediately begins treatment, he instead decides to take a motorcycle trip from Toronto through the Canadian prairies to British Columbia.
One Week
2008
5.8A Roman Catholic teenage boy in Glace Bay, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia during the 1930s faces various growing-up problems: Should he become a priest? What should he do about the murder he witnessed, committed by a local cop and upstanding parishioner? And how far should he go with his girlfriend, who happens to be the murderer's daughter?
The Bay Boy
1984
6.4A 40-year-old bachelor gets his wish to be 17 again, and he goes back to high school where he romances the daughter of the woman he dated in high school the first time.
Young Again
1986
6.0Nurse Margaret Sanger became a pioneering crusader for women's reproductive rights after she published a booklet on birth control techniques that flew in the face of a law established by Anthony Comstock forbidding the dissemination of information on contraception. Sanger later helped to establish America's first birth control clinic in 1916, and in 1925 was one of the founders of Planned Parenthood.
Choices of the Heart: The Margaret Sanger Story
1995
4.9An average everyman discovers he's the unwitting target of an ultra secret domestic black-op centering on mind control.
Control Factor
2003
6.6A young man, convicted of the murder of a clerk, who has been on death row for five years and now awaits his execution while his family desperately seek a reprieve.
The Execution of Raymond Graham
1985
7.3Dramatization of the true story of the so-called Willmar Eight, a group of Minnesota bank workers who braved freezing conditions whilst picketing their branch in a struggle for union rights.
A Matter of Sex
1984
7.1A Kentucky woman whose mine-worker husband is nearly killed in a cave-in, and whose father is slowly dying of black lung disease, joins the picket lines for a long, violent strike.
Harlan County War
2000
4.0When the zealous followers of the Church of the Divine Light collide with the heathen filmmakers heaven help those caught in the middle! Bishop Wally, the cult's corrupt founder, must liquidate his assets or face the wrath of the IRS, unaware that his too-slick tax advisor Lodz Kuckoff has unwittingly set the stage for calamity. Kuckoff promises a filmmaker, Liberty Jean, that he'll secure the million dollars she needs to make her dream project, an expose on sex in advertising. She reluctantly agrees, even though part of the deal includes having to cast the financier's curvaceous, but obnoxiously untalented girlfriend LIta as the star. Kuckoff, realizing the terrible mistake he's made, hires the neighborhood thugs to sabotage the picture. However, before they can hit full stride, the Bishop arrives and declares his own holy war. The movie's set, a gigantic birthday cake, becomes the battleground for one of the most uproarious brawls ever.
Loose Ends
1986
7.7Jane (Bernadette Peters) has a dizzy spell while at home. As her condition does not improve, she consults a doctor who finds that she is very ill and that she has no family to help her through this very trying time. He enlists the help of a therapist (Mary Tyler Moore) who is very hesitant to become involved in this case due to the loss she suffered as a young child. As her condition deteriorates, Jane learns how to come to terms with her past as does her therapist.
The Last Best Year
1990
5.8When Valerie returns home from prison years after killing her neighbour in an apparent drunk driving accident, she wants nothing more than to move on - until the deceased's son shows up at her door and it becomes clear that the past is not easily forgotten.
Cardinals
2017
6.6Brooks is an eccentric rich kid, with a fondness for big band music, bow ties taking strange photographs who one day whilst stealing a mannequin from a clothes store, meets Anne, a free-spirited, young deaf girl who works in the shop. It's a meeting that will transform his life. As their friendship blossoms he starts to learn sign-language and she helps him to conquer his fear of water but with a bullying brother, insensitive overbearing father and his father's peculiar new girlfriend all pressurising him to be 'normal' will Brooks be able to break free from their boundaries and his own fears and limitations to find the meaning of true and selfless love.
Crazy Moon
1987
7.5Seventeen year old Izzy Marks lives in Toronto with her divorced mother and finds her life boring and directionless. Meant to be a sequel to Don Owen's acclaimed 1964 film "Nobody Waved Good-bye", "Unfinished Business" looks at life two decades later for Peter and Julie's (Peter Kastner and Julie Biggs) daughter Isabelle "Izzy" Marks (Isabelle Mejias). Curious, funny and intelligent, 17 year old Izzy feels the frustrations of her limiting environment and the pull of a more exciting, larger world. She meets passionate anarchist wannabe Jessie 'Fixit' (Peter Spence) and is quickly drawn into his free living alternative lifestyle. Much to the displeasure of her once free-thinking parents and friends.
Unfinished Business
1984
5.4Brad Stevens and Alex Prager are best friends. They are both popular high school students and key members of the football team. Brad is up for nomination to West Point, and Alex is a talented pianist who’s counting on his football skills to land him a university scholarship. But their lives are turned upside down when one day Alex admits that he is gay.
The Truth About Alex
1987
An introverted teen determines to overcome his anxieties and run the Montreal marathon.
Blue Line
1985
NRTwo strangers show up at a family's cottage claiming to have spent their childhood summers there, but their behaviour seems to be driven by something more sinister than nostalgia.
Deerbrook
2017
8.7After a bad breakup, a seasoned wedding photographer decides to start shooting divorces.
Divorce Photographer
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NRArthur Zimmer travels to Prince Edward Island to sell his father's house just as detached feet have been turning up on the island's shores.
Running Season
2014
4.0A newscaster is due to go live on local television in the middle of a hot flash, in Thea Hollatz's animated comedy about a woman trying to keep her cool when one type of flash leads to another.
Hot Flash
2019