Stewart was born on 22 April 1959, in Edmonton, Alberta, the daughter of Mary (Stewart) and John Ralph Nursall. Her parents taught at the University of Alberta, her mother a physiology teaching assistant and her father a biology professor. Stewart attended Strathcona Composite High School. She first took jazz dance lessons, and moved to London after high school to study dance and general performing arts, and where she passed the audition for her first movie, The Apple.[2][3]
Career
Stewart in 2012
In 1980, Stewart landed a role in The Apple, a musical science fiction cult film.[2][3] During the production of The Apple, the director Menahem Golan took issue with her original name Mary Nursall and insisted she change it, which she did using her mother's maiden name.[4]
Beginning in the mid-1990s, she scaled back her appearances while raising her family. After her children had grown, she again started appearing in television and film roles, and expressed an interest in directing.[2] In 2010, she appeared in the film A Christmas Snow.[8] In 2016, she directed the short movie A Walk to Remember.[7] She starred in the Hallmark holidays movies Rock N' Roll Christmas in 2019[9] and A Christmas Comeback in 2020.[10]
Personal life
She is the sister of Alan Nursall, a scientist and media personality who reports on science news for the Canadian TV series Daily Planet and the Discovery Channel. Another brother, John Nursall, is a freelance writer and TV/film documentary director and producer.[2]
She was married to actor John Findlater in 1983 and divorced in 1985. She married Richard Allerton in 1992. She has a daughter and a son[1] and lived in Brooklyn, New York, as of 2013.[2]
