Daegan Fryklind | Gary Fryklind | Source: Getty Images | Instagram/daeganfryklind
Gary Fryklind's name appeared on a title card at the end of season two of "Shadow & Bone" in a touching tribute. Two months following his death, his daughter, Daegan Fryklind, a showrunner on the show, shared her own.
On Father's Day in June 2021, Daegan Fryklind posted a photo of an older man smiling excitedly at the person behind the camera. He wore grey trousers, a black zip-up jacket, and a blue shirt underneath.
He carried a black bag with one arm and waved as he walked up the driveway. The man was Daegan's father, Gary Fryklind, and that Father's Day was the first the TV producer was spending without seeing or talking to hers.
In a lengthy and reflective caption alongside the picture, Daegan noted that losing someone that significant during a global pandemic was strange. "They just vaporize," she said. At the time, she felt she hadn't "even scratched the surface of what life is like" without him.
"I haven't been able to go to his place and feel the loss, so it's just on days like this, or on my birthday, or on any given day when we'd text or call about nothing and everything, that the loss starts to sink in," she explained.
Who Was Gary Fryklind?
Gary drew his first breath in Saskatchewan, Canada, on March 31, 1941. He studied Art at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon. He also pursued a Master of Education while serving as an art teacher for the Calgary Board of Education.
Gary taught art at John G. Diefenbaker Western Canada high schools and eventually retired. He was said to have been an avid golfer and passed his passion for the sport down to his kids. In the tribute described above, Daegan shared:
"I secretly learned to play golf so I could surprise him by showing up in Revelstoke one summer, fully capable of playing a round with him."
Gary also had a social media presence; he had a Facebook account and an Instagram page, though he had last posted in 2019 and 2020, respectively. He was 80 when he passed away on April 22, 2021, survived by Daegan, her two siblings, and his grandkids. His cause of death was not revealed.
Gary Fryklind Supported His Daughter's Artistic Inclinations
Daegan briefly spoke about how her parents supported her passion for art in a 2015 interview. Describing herself as a "fairly feral child," the showrunner shared that she grew up in the mountains of Alberta and Vancouver, Canada.
"And I wrote a lot. I started writing at a very early age, bad poetry, mostly, that my father would turn into art," she shared, adding that her parents would frame her poems. Daegan said Gary often didn't understand what she did for a living, but he watched everything and "asked all the right questions."
Gary Fryklind's Dedication from 'Shadow and Bone'
His title card read, "Dedicated to the memory of Gary Fryklind." In the same month that his daughter reflected on his passing, she posted about her mother on the anniversary of her death; Daegon's mother had died 16 years prior.
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