For those of us around Trinity College this summer, film trucks, cameras, and bright lights were a frequent sighting, as the College was used as a filming location for a television production. With our impressive Collegiate Gothic architecture and lush quad, Trinity certainly is photogenic! But this isn’t the first time that Trinity has been ready for its close-up. As the records of the Office of the Bursar (F1004) and the Archives’ photo collection reveal, Trinity has served as the backdrop of several film and television series over the years.

Trinity’s historic setting has made an excellent backdrop for historical films and series. The 1974 CBC television miniseries The National Dream was shot in part at Trinity. The series – based on a book of the same name by Pierre Berton – starred William Hutt as John A. MacDonald.

MacDonald would feature in another historical film shot at Trinity, 1979’s CBC television movie Riel. This film starred Raymound Cloutier as Louis Riel and Christopher Plummer as John A. MacDonald. Canadian acting legends William Shatner and Leslie Nielsen also featured in the film. It seems Nielsen was making a return visit to Trinity, having also shot the CBC film Tom Brown’s Schooldays here in 1973.

Naturally, Trinity has also served as a location for films and series set at a college or university. Seeley Hall, the Quad, and the Junior Common Room were all used as locations for the 1974 cult horror classic Black Christmas, starring Margot Kidder and Olivia Hussey. Strachan Hall served as a college dining hall in the 1982 made-for-television film Mazes and Monsters, starring Tom Hanks in one of his first acting roles. The exterior of St. Hilda’s used as a stand-in for Harvard University in a 1993 television miniseries JFK: Reckless Youth, which starred Patrick Dempsey as a young John F. Kennedy. Trinity’s roof and quad also served as the fictional Havenhurst College in the 1993 Fox drama Class of ’96, a show that focused on the trials and tribulations of seven college freshmen.

But Trinity has also stood in for other locations as well. The Rigby Room at St. Hilda’s College was dressed as a turn-of-the-century Boston maternity ward for the 1985 CBS television miniseries Kane & Abel starring Sam Neill and Peter Strauss. The Stedman Library at St. Hilda’s also became a medical office for an episode of Kung-Fu: The Legend Continues filmed in 1992. Trinity’s Chapel served as a WWI nursing station in the 1988 CBC television miniseries Glory Enough for All, depicting the discovery of insulin by Fred Banting and Charles Best. On another theme, the JCR became a beer magnate’s opulent, wood-paneled office in the 1985 film Beer, starring Loretta Swit and Rip Torn. And Strachan Hall became a tavern for an episode of the television series Forever Knight, shot in 1992.