When Sheila Ivy Traister got the unthinkable, unforgiving, unalterable diagnosis in July 2023, she turned it into a joke. It was terminal, Stage 4 lung cancer – ironically, a kind that develops only in people who have never smoked. 

“So I asked my doctor: ‘Should I start smoking?’” she later told me. “I got a laugh from him – which was good.”

She got a laugh from me, too – which was miraculous. 

A unique gene was the culprit. By then, the cancer was in her abdomen, chest and neck. It was in her brain and in her bones. Traister was told she had six months. Maybe a year. It was all over but the laughing.

And the fighting. A new medication had just been discovered that targets that exact offending gene. It wasn’t going to save her. But it might buy her a few years. “Of course, I’ve never been one to believe that statistics had to apply to me,” she said at the time, adding, “I’d like to believe that I can blow those numbers out of the water.”

She made the most out of her bonus time. But on July 24, almost two years to the day after her ill-mannered prognosis, Traister died at the VA Hospital in Denver. She was 67.  

Traister is being adoringly remembered as a multi-faceted actor, director, acting coach, teaching artist, activist, mentor, champion and passionate champion of the Colorado film industry.

In all, Traister gave 48 years of cumulative service to the local and national labor movement, culminating with her appointment as local president of the Screen Actors Guild. She would be thrilled, in fact, that the writing of this remembrance might be used to champion the positive impact filmmaking has on the state’s economy, and the need for legislators to support the industry with more tax incentives.

When the COVID shutdown began, Traister fiercely lobbied the Colorado General Assembly “to protect our state’s film, television, and media industry in this critical moment,” she said at the time. There have been a number of small legislative wins for Colorado film since then, and Traister was out canvassing for all of them. Her efforts earned her the national George Heller Memorial Award, with special mention of her promoting inclusiveness and equal opportunity in film – especially for those who are Asian American or Pacific Islander, and anyone with a disability. The award is considered the highest recognition for union service.

“I just don’t think film in Colorado would be where it is right now without Sheila,” said actor and attorney Cajardo Lindsey. “She was a fierce advocate for actors here in town, and for film in Colorado.”

The last years of Traister’s life were marked by tremendous health challenges dating back long before her cancer diagnosis. In November 2012, she said, “I slipped on the ice and separated my shoulder, tore a hip ligament, blew out my knee and suffered a severe concussion that still affects my vision and cognitive functioning.”

Traister never had three recommended surgeries because her medical debt from the incident had already exceeded $75,000, even after help from the local Denver Actors Fund.

But if anything, Traister’s injuries only enhanced her intuitive empathy. Her website is filled with testimonials from students who say her coaching made them better actors – and humans.

When actor and friend Abner Genece moved to Denver in 2014, he considered himself a broken man. He was unsure whether he would or could ever act again when he met Traister at the sign-in table of a local Screen Actors Guild event at the Sie FilmCenter.

“I was at a very low point and really making my first pinkie-toe attempt at even touching acting again,” Genece said. “I was feeling very down and very alone, and Sheila keyed in on that. She said she was going to be directing a production at the Aurora Fox, and that there was a part I might be wonderful for.

“It turned out to be ‘Arabian Nights,’ and she cast me in the leading role. She said she saw something in me. I was flabbergasted. I really believe acting saved my life, and Sheila was the bridge. She started me on a healing trajectory. Metaphorically speaking, Sheila reached out her hand, and she pulled me back in.”

Of “Arabian Nights,” which drew some intense backlash from all sides of the Middle East conflict, she said: “I have one of the most amazing and ethnically diverse casts that has ever graced a stage in Denver.” And that, Lindsey said, was very important to her.

“Sheila was a shapeshifter in the most positive way I could ever intend that term,” he said. “I mean, she could switch from being a friend to you, to being your coach, to being your mentor, all in one conversation. And it was all coming from this beautiful place of light. You always felt that she was in your corner.”

And that corner was a place of relentless positivity. You could tell by her signature sign-off sayings, like: “Dream fearlessly, act courageously and step joyfully into the future of your making.” … And, “I teach because I love, not because I know!” …  And, “Kindness ~ Just do it.”

But education was at the heart of everything she did. “To be informed,” she often said, “is to have the building blocks for making one’s dreams come true.”  

Called to Colorado by the Air Force

Sheila Ivy Traister was born on Jan. 17, 1958, in Taiwan, to Martin and Lynn Traister. He was an officer in the U.S. Air Force. Sheila spent her early years moving around with her family and eventually followed in her father’s footsteps. She was accepted to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs the first year the academy accepted women. Traister studied mechanical engineering and served on the Pistol Team.

But all planes led Traister to the arts, and she has since amassed a surprisingly broad creative portfolio – including a coveted Super Bowl commercial. In 2000, Westword named her the year’s best female actor for her work in Shadow Theatre Company’s multiracial production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and Theatre Group’s “The Blue Room.” A personal triumph was performing in “99 Histories” for Theatre Esprit Asia.

She was nominated for a 2010 Denver Post Ovation Award for her starring role in Paragon Theatre’s acclaimed “The Sound of a Voice,” a haunting Japanese fable about a beautiful woman living alone in the woods who offers food and shelter to an aging samurai. “Traister is heartbreaking as she reveals the combined effect of a cycle of loss, grief and isolation,” Adam Goldstein wrote for the Aurora Sentinel.

She also performed for the Aurora Fox, Town Hall Arts Center, And Toto Too, Playback Theatre and The Changing Scene, among others.

Traister also logged 32 film and television credits, including “In Plain Sight,” the miniseries “Asteroid” an the awesomely titled film, “Even Hitler Had a Girlfriend.” She worked with Academy Award-winning directors Jim Sheridan, Taylor Hackford and Peter Bagdonovich, and appeared in films that starred Helen Mirren, Toby McGuire, Hillary Swank and Nathan Lane.

Still, Traister was most proud of her work as an acting coach and teacher. She created the acting department at the Colorado Film School in 1999, was adjunct faculty for the University of Colorado Denver film program, and coached actors, writers and directors around the globe.

A celebration of life was held for Traister on Aug. 4 at her happy place, the Sie FilmCenter. That night, Denver playwright Jeff Neuman texted his late friend, then shared the note more widely:

“You, more than almost anyone I’ve ever known, had a ripple effect – an actual wave of love, activism and community,” he wrote. “Your kindness created kindness which created kindness which created kindness.”

Her last message to me went like this: “For what it’s worth, every day I wake up, I feel extremely blessed, and I have every intention of living a radically wonderful life for as long as I’m given in full gratitude for my ability to continue to love and give back to the community and the people that I love so much.”

She is survived by her brother, Anthony Traister, sister-in-law, Brigitte Traister, and four nieces and nephews.