Margaret Varian

Margaret Catherine Varian was born Margit Katalin Sara Stevka on October 19, 1939 in Nabrad Hungary, to Laszlo Denes Szaniszlo Stevka, a Major in the Royal Hungarian Artillery and Margit Sara Leovey, who was a successful Hungarian competitive fencer in 1935-36', better known as Sari or Nana to her grandchildren. Due to the Russian invasion of Hungary, Margaret and her mother fled Hungary and stayed as displaced persons in Austria.

They then were able to emigrate to Canada in 1949 where Margaret went on to become a Canadian citizen in 1956. She flourished in Toronto graduating 2nd in her class from Commerce High.

In 1959 Margaret was crowned Miss Ottawa Rough Rider (Regional Football Team), a prestigious national beauty pageant. Many prizes and scholarships were awarded to her for this honor. She attended Ryerson Institute and was able to get a job writing and producing documentaries for a local TV station. One of her awarded prizes included a course to become a Script Supervisor for film and television. Although realizing this was not similar to the job of writing and producing, which she loved, this would take her into a new world of film and television which would define her future career.

She met John Tary in Canada and after a long-distance relationship they were married in August 1965 and moved to California. They had 3 children, John, Susannah, and Stephen. After several decades, she then married Spencer Varian a pilot and part time location generator operator with whom she lived and loved for a few more decades. She was very successful with her career having worked continuously in the motion picture and television industry spending almost twenty years alone on two popular shows, St. Elsewhere and LA Law.

She had a stroke in 1999 and was unable to continue working (her last show was one of her favorites "Providence"), but she still loved her life and was able to enjoy and so dearly love her children and 8 grandchildren: Bryan, Charlotte, Lily, Aeva, Alex, Yoko, Amelia, and Rebecca.