Penny Noble, who was a co-founder the major Canadian talent agency Noble Caplan Abrams (NCA), has died. She was 58.
Rick Gerrits, a film and TV agent at NCA, confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that Noble had died on June 23 in Toronto five months after a diagnosis for brain cancer.
Born in Toronto and a graduate of Earl Haig High School, Noble founded Noble Talent Management in 1977 as she rode the coattails of an expanding Canadian film and TV industry.
That banner would eventually become Noble Caplan in 1998 and then Noble Caplan Abrams in 2003, and with a Canadian client list that includes Drake, Simu Liu, Kelly McCormack, Stephen James and Nina Dobrev.
Fellow NCA founder Rich Caplan in a statement said of his longtime business partner: “Penny Noble was a tireless overachiever, a philanthropist, a creator, an entrepreneur, a collaborator, a glass ceiling breaker and one helluva talent agent. A feminist with out a label, Penny simply refused to fly in formation. She made her own rules and then lived by them. And she took shit from no one.”
Noble’s passing follows on the heels of NCA partner and talent agent Norbert Abrams retiring from the firm earlier this year.
Canadian actress Kim Roberts (Paw Patrol, The Handmaid’s Tale) on her Instagram page first recalled as a teenager and aspiring actress hearing about Noble as a talent agent from a neighbor while being given a short drive to the subway.
“Fast forward years later I’m doing a play called sistahs and two of my fellow actors are represented by Penny Noble. They get me an interview with the agency. I’m signed on by Angela Wright, but somehow find my way to Penny’s roster where I stayed for 20+ years with a little break in between. Penny was my friend, my agent, my confidant, my biggest cheerleader. She had her own vision for my career and drove it strongly. I will forever be grateful to her for the foundation that she helped me lay in this industry… Thank you, Penny for your love and for all that you contributed to this industry. You will be sorely missed. Rest in eternal peace,” Roberts wrote in tribute to Noble.
More recently Noble had turned to film producing as she executive produced the feature Stealing the Sky, a Toronto-shot comedy directed and starring Megan Follows, along with co-star and writer Marie Dame.
As a philanthropist, Noble supported World Vision, Planned Parenthood, the Brady Center and a host of local theatrical stage companies. She is survived by two daughters, Gigi and Gemma, whom she adopted from China and raised as a single parent, and her brother Craig.
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