Sandy Wilson

Sandy Wilson is usually remembered for her first feature length drama, My American Cousin, which began as a vague idea for a screenplay about a young adolescent girl based on her own childhood on Paradise Ranch, north of Naramata in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. In a 1989 interview, Wilson said, “This film is as much about this particular area as it is about the ’50s era or about relatlonships.” Set in 1959, the story is about a 12-year-old girl played by Maragret Langrick. Wilson and Langrick first met each other as neighbours in the same Vancouver area where they both lived. Langrick’s physical resemblance to Wilson, as well as her total naturalness and the fact that at the age of 12, she was just beginning to experience those adolescent pangs, made ‘her perfect for the role. Prior to My American Cousin, Wilson’s films had been distributed and broadcast and won awards, including a Blue Ribbon for He’s Not The Walking Kind at the New York Film Festival in 1973.