Local broadcasting has lost one of its golden voices with the passing of actress and journalist Barbara Assoon.
Assoon, 91, who had been ailing for some time, died earlier today at the Westshore Private Hospital in Cocorite.
She began her acting career in the mid-1940s and had a role in a 1948 production of Peter Ustinov’s play The Indifferent Shepherd. The following year she received a scholarship to study acting in England and enrolled at the Bristol Old Vic school.
Assoon spent the next 19 years in Britain where she appeared in numerous radio, television and stage productions. She also performed in radio soap operas and live TV dramas in the 1950s. In 1958, she played Rosa in Errol John’s play Moon on a Rainbow Shawl at the Royal Court Theatre.
Assoon returned to Trinidad in 1968 and worked with Radio Trinidad as a news reporter and programme presenter. She spent the following decades as a broadcasting presenter with Guardian Media’s TBC Radio Network.
Her last appearance in a stage play was in 1990 with Derek Walcott
After her retirement Assoon remained active providing vocal training to journalists.
