Ronda Cooper, a long-time Canadian talent agent, including 35 years at The Characters Talent Agency, has died. She is 77 years old.

People Agency president Jennifer Goldhar Gossack said Cooper died in Toronto on January 1 after a year-long battle with dementia. The Hollywood Reporter.

Cooper was born in Toronto on May 1, 1947. He originally aspired to be an actor and studied at York University and a drama school in London, England. In 1979, she returned to Toronto and found work as a talent agent in her hometown and at the Penny Noble Talent Agency in New York City. In 1986, Characters agency founder Larry Goldhar was looking for new agents and clients, and stage and television actor Jonathan Welsh recommended Cooper.

Goldhar called her and found out that Cooper had just moved back to Toronto from New York. The two met for lunch, and a week later Cooper joined the cast.

In a speech read at Cooper's funeral on Jan. 3, Jennifer Goldhar recalled working first as the veteran agent's assistant and then as agents alongside Cooper.

"As her assistant, she would often take me to theater openings she loved, and I would drive us to Stratford because she hated driving. She would take me shopping with her favorite designers , and was always proud to have me at the table,” Goldhar recalled.

Cooper often invites interns and assistants to her Toronto office to learn valuable lessons about the trade. “She loved teaching them about the business and would always invite them to sit in her office and listen to her calls so they could learn how to talk to clients or listen to her make deals,” Goldhar recalled.

As a theatrical agent, Cooper had many clients in Hollywood films, such as Disney Pictures' Mena Massoud. Aladdin fame – and local stage productions. In a Jan. 2 Instagram post, actor Matthew G Brown recalled the critical support Cooper gave him as an agent, dating back to his teenage acting career.

"Ronda Cooper shaped my career. I worked with her for over 20 years and she worked so hard for me to get me to where I am today. Everything about me as an actor and what I could possibly be Everything I am, I owe to her influence. Thank you Ronda for sticking with this Regent Park kid who had big dreams and know that you are one of the reasons I will always keep going," Brown wrote.

Theater producer and entertainment attorney Derrick Chua also praised Cooper on Facebook as a staunch supporter of the industry. "I was saddened to hear that the brilliant agent Ronda Cooper had passed away. As a young theater producer she was one of my first agents and would go on to work on many shows over the years Met and chatted with her, she was always very supportive of her clients and Canadian theater. Rest in peace Ronda," he wrote.

Cooper is survived by her daughter, Tina Cooper, and her granddaughter, Cooper Rose Critchley.