Bo Fred Olsson

Bo Fred Olsson was born in Hede, Härjedalen, Sweden. The Olsson family of 6 left Sweden by ocean liner from Gothenburg to New York in 1946 when he was 4 years old. They travelled across America by rail and entered Canada through the border customs in White Rock, British Columbia. Bo’s father was already a Canadian citizen from having lived in Canada several years before, but his mother, he and his younger sister didn’t have the proper immigration papers to show, so they were put in a holding cell at the White Rock train station. It was a shocking introduction to a new country for a young family to be put in jail for some reason they had no idea about. and it’s even humorous to think of a little 4 – year old boy standing behind bars that were almost wide enough for him to walk through. After several hours of waiting for the clearance documents to be wired to the customs officers, they were released to continue their travels into their new country.

The Olssons settled in Vancouver where the children attended school in the East End.Bo attended Laura Secord Elementary school for grades 1 to 6 in Vancouver and grades 7 to 12 at Vancouver Technical High School. After graduating in 1960, he added a first year of college before taking a job in a large supermarket and earning his way to become Produce Manager. In 1964, he took a year off to travel home to Sweden and stayed in Vikarbyn, Dalarna for a year. There, he worked daytime in a machine shop, learning various metal work skills and teaching night school English at a local school. He was so inspired by both jobs that, upon his return to Canada, he knew he wanted to combine these two skills for a career as an Yrkeslärare (Technology Education Teacher).

After retiring from 34 years of high school teaching, Bo decided to chase one of his other dreams: to be an actor. He started on stage with local live theatre to learn basic acting skills then went on to get an agent and auditioned for film and television. Like most serious actors, he started off in television commercials and was principal actor in over 40 TV ads for many different products. He had various roles in film and television shows like, Beyond Belief, Animal miracles, Dead Like Me, the 4400, the Girlfriend Experience, Helix etc. just to name a few.

He is no longer doing any acting, but continues to perform for many senior residences and other venues in the Lower Mainland where acting skills augment his music and joke-telling routines. He is presently writing songs and hopes to record and publish a few for posterity.

Bo has entertained at many Swedish events, at the Scandinavian Centre and at Swedish Heritage events.