We had forty consecutive Sunday evenings of chamber music under Don DiNovo’s direction. We actually made a profit without receiving a nickel of grant money.

We actually had an opera at the Bohemian Embassy. I was approached by a guy named Dan Pociernitsky a student at the Opera School. He and a colleague named Henry Papale had fashioned a chamber opera called Balloon. The small cast and the tiny group of musicians all came from the University of Toronto Music School.

A multimedia event using modern dance came to the Bohemian Embassy. I had been an admirer of the Toronto Dance Theatre under Trish Beatie, Peter Randazo and company. One of their most accomplished dancers was Susan MacPherson. Sue joined with CBC television producer Jim Guthro and painter Rick Gorman to coble together a week of specially prepared music, dance and projected images on a specially prepared three dimensional set. The effect was refreshingly new. There wasn’t a dull second.

While I was away in the United States performing in Beyond the Fringe, the Bohemian Embassy started to suffer. In June of 1961 Ted Morris asked to be bought out. Harriman and Quance had already left. Peter Ooman and I had been running the place until August of 1964 when I went to New York. I felt guilty leaving the place I loved. Had I made the Bohemian Embassy a personality rather than an institution? Had I been wrong to audition for a summer theatre job at Green Mansions, a resort in upper New York State?

To attempt a revival Peter and I took on eight new shareholders who each contributed a hundred bucks just as Peter and I had. We gave the place a good scrub and a new coat of paint. Physically the place had never looked better but my career was becoming demanding. My significant other was Jan Tennant. We had dated a couple of times when we were both students at Humberside Collegiate Institute. Now she was teaching at Castlefrank High School. She would come home at the end of her day and after supper I would go to the Embassy and come back late. It was not good for our relationship.

Along with Robert Cessna who did the Dudley Moore material in our U.S. company of Beyond the Fringe I got the job at Green Mansions a semi posh resort in upper New York State. Jan came along as wardrobe mistress, her first job in show business. Because the producers had failed to get us proper immigration clearance, when the authorities came by looking for Canadian wetbacks, Jan and I were asked to leave. The officer was quite nice about it. He said, “Send me a post card…from Canada.” Back at the Embassy things had again deteriorated.

Barrie Baldaro and I threw together the two man Village Revue to which I have already referred. Because of conflicting scheduling, we had a limited engagement at the Bohemian Embassy, so we took it to other venues. I didn’t want to pull rank and cancel what had been planned. My new partners thought it would be a good idea to have an official manager. Over my reluctance Peter Churchill a former editor at CBC TV News got the nod. To be sure my time was freer to do radio and TV shows.

Another factor figured in the closing of the first edition of the Bohemian embassy. Yorkville was a poor area in downtown Toronto which gradually changed from 1960 to 1964. The Half Beat Coffee House, The Penny Farthing, The Mouse Hole, the 71 and ultimately the Riverboat turned the district into the place to be. The subculture of youth creativity was turning from folk music to rock and roll. The Beatles did it. Their musicality and superior lyrics could not be denied. The Flower Children were upon us and the Beat Generation dressed in blacks, grays and navy blues looked oddly drab and old fashioned. Girls appeared in ultra feminine Laura Ashley dresses, a far cry from the unisex drabness of the Beats. Love-ins and Be-ins replaced Bohemian style hideaways. The subculture was going public. The Bohemian Embassy was affected because in addition to the committed folkies, jazz people, poets and theatre buffs, the curious represented a sizeable portion of our clientele. By 1964 they were becoming the street crowd in Yorkville. We survived the winter of 1966 but the approaching good weather looked great for Yorkville and bad for the Bohemian Embassy. Six years to the day I closed the Bohemian Embassy Coffee House. I made sure we had no debts. I was hopeful that we would rise again.

The names of certain patrons come to mind Edith Fowke a well respected academic at York University with her concerns of finding folk material and preserving it for future generations. Jack and Estelle Klein, Dentist, Dr. John Houston and his wife Gail. Magistrate Bob Dnieper, Dr. Bill and Florence Goodman all attended regularly. Dr. Bill looked after Gordie Lightfoot’s throat as well as those of Ian and Sylvia and doubtless a few dozen other worthy folkies. Dr. Bruchovsky freely offered his services to any worthy creative person as did Psychiatrist Dr. Jim McDonald. National Socialized Medicine had not yet been enacted.

Libby and Liberty

We had a somewhat unusual visitor from the entertainment business. While working in the TV news department, I had been sent to interview her. Her name was Libby Jones officially. Her real name was Adlyn Morris and was the highest paid featured performer on the U.S. Burlesque circuit. Libby took off her clothes seductively on stage for a living. While chatting with her after the interview, it turned out that Libby her husband Jerry and I shared a passion for classical music. Libby was a Mozart freak. Jerry was a Mahler freak and I was a Bach freak.

All of this led to a long term friendship. When Libby was to appear at the Casino theatre, the Lux theatre or the Victory theatre Jerry would phone a week or so in advance and I was able to call acquaintances in the media and as often as not got Libby on TV or a newspaper article. Libby and Jerry often said that if I wanted to visit New York I should never go to an expensive hotel but come and stay with them. On a couple of occasions I availed myself of the opportunity.

In late 1964 I had my Broadway debut in Beyond the Fringe at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Libby, Jerry and their daughter Susie were my guests in the audience. They were extatic. Libby had always wanted to be a legitimate actress but could never see herself starting at forty bucks a week as an Off Broadway walk-on.

Some years later I was in New York and Libby was slated to be in an Off Broadway production with Mickey Hargitay. He was an internationally famous body builder who was married to and had recently been dumped by Jane Mansfield an internationally famous body in her own right. Jane’s publicist had been dumped at the same time and he and Mickey had devised the show. Libby was blond but there the similarity to Jane ended. Though not skinny, Libby was a lot closer to a Paris runway than Jane would ever be. Ms Jones was leggy and tall. Jane was a voluptuous and …well…voluptuous.

Libby showed me the script. My heart sank on her behalf. I met some of the cast and it sank further. I met Mickey and yes you guessed it, my heart sank even further. His Hungarian accent was too thick to handle much dialogue and at that point he would not remove his shirt on stage. He felt he had been away from the Gym too long. I knew the show would be a disaster. I don’t believe it lasted more than a week.

Libby had married very young. Her first husband went off to fight the Japanese in WW2. While he was away Libby acquired an Honours English Degree from the University of Washington in Seatle. Her husband returned wanting to homestead in Alaska. Time and different aspirations split the relationship. Libby had a job as a secretary and receptionist with a radio station. In those days radio stations played Classical and Church music on Sundays. Libby got to program the Sunday selections. Radio station employees were very poorly paid so she got a job at Boeing where she met Jerry. He was Boston Irish who studied to become a Jesuit priest. Jerry was as good a raconteur as I have ever met. His stories were told with remarkable eloquence. He had a degree in Psychology which qualified him brilliantly at Boeing to work in the metallurgy department.

Libby’s dad had a lodge brother who owned the town’s Burlesque theatre. Libby, her Dad and Jerry were invited to attend on as it turned out a fateful Sunday. “How much do these dancers get per week?” was Libby’s question. “Seventy five dollars”,was the owners reply. It was more than three times what Libby was making. “But you would never do that”, was a challenge Libby couldn’t resist.

Jerry became her manager and a very clever one. Let’s say Libby had a booking at a club in New Orleans. Jerry would pick several days of publications of The States Item and the Times Picayune newspapers. He would study the entertainment columnists for style then he would write what he termed a press release. He would append a note to the particular columnist he had imitated. “As you are the only person receiving this press release, please feel free to quote it verbatim in part or in total.” It worked with amazing frequency that a columnist would save himself a day’s work by publishing Jerry’s imitative article on Libby. “Hey, this guy writes good!”

I have never met a better raconteur than Jerry Morris; although Libby herself was no slouch in this area. The characters they met as they made their way through Burlesque Theatres, Strip Clubs and Bars across America would have made an excellent book. There were tremendously wealthy Club owners who had strong connections with people in Southern Italy and Sicily who couldn’t read or write in either English or Italian. Jerry would hand them contracts which they would immediately slip into a drawer. “We’ll look at that later. Would ya like a cuppa coffee?” Invariably the club owner would have a bookish number two who had no interest in being number one in spite of all his smarts or perhaps because of them.

Too many free drinks and too little to do while Libby was working and Jerry had to come to the hard conclusion that he was an alcoholic. He was dealing with it quite well then out of the blue according to my informant Libby got sick went into hospital and within a couple of days died of an unusual viral infection. Jerry hit the bottle so hard that within a week and a half he drank himself to death.

They loved the Bohemian Embassy and spent a great deal of time there when they were in Toronto. I still have a vivid memory of Libby playing three guys at once at chess and beating them all. She had grown up at a time when a woman could be a secretary, a nurse, a teacher or a housewife. Libby broke out of those conventions and packed a whole lot of living into her short life. She was her own person, still the featured performer in her late forties and still slim and attractive. She and Jerry had wonderfully colourful lives.

I remember as a kid in the role of Don the Baptist believing that if I saw a girl in the nude Satan would take over and I would end up in jail a ruined man. What utter nonsense. The ancient Greeks had it right. The female form is glorious and most women are terrific and a pleasure to know. It seems to me that the battle still rages between the citizens of Jerusalem and the citizens of Athens. By the second year of the Bohemian Embassy I had left Jerusalem and joined the Athenians. It is hard for me to remember that I had actually visited the offices of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship in the Embassy’s first year to ask that organization about taking over one night a week. Fortunately they looked at me with suspicion and no one came by even to look at the place. Now I am a card carrying agnostic and far more comfortable than when I believed that 99 and forty-four one hundredths percent of humanity would spend eternity thrashing around in the lake of fire.

Frequently just before closing time a couple would show up at the Bohemian Embassy. I would be collecting coffee mugs and straightening chairs while whistling a Bach fugue or partita. Harry Somers with Barbara Chilcott on his arm would tell me what I was whistling. I remember telling Harry that when my ship came in I would commission him to write a composition for pursed lips and symphony orchestra.

At times Harry would show up at an event with his buddy Norman Symonds. I became acquainted with their respective musical creativity. I found Harry’s early compositions really attractive but had trouble with his later atonal stuff. Though not much of a jazz fan I found Norm’s material an interesting and attractively challenging. The two of them made great guests on one of my radio shows on CBC.

590 Yonge Street was just a few doors north of the Bohemian Embassy via Saint Nicholas lane and a couple of back alleyways. Actor Donald Sutherland was doubtless its most famous former inhabitant. Others were artists Bob Hedrick and Rick Gorman. When I encountered the space writers Michael John Nimchuck, Warren Wilson and John Harasti (later Dave Harriman) occupied this quintessential Beatnik Pad.

Someone had affixed egg cartons to the ceiling of the living room for better acoustic effect. There was a hole in the floor in front of the fireplace where the fire must have at least temporarily gotten out of hand. Two large windows gave out on Yonge Street where one could see Hercules Sales a large purveyor of surplus and remaindered goods of an outdoor nature or for people with military leanings. Underneath at ground level was an electronics outlet. A large kitchen was in the rear as well as the stairway entrance. Three bedrooms and a bathroom occupied the third floor. By climbing a ladder you could access the roof. You could see your breath four to five months a year.

Fortunately the hot water system was excellent and you could fill the bathtub with really hot water. By the time the water was cool enough to get in the room was toasty if you had remembered to keep the door closed. In the winter we did most of our living at 590 in the kitchen where we could heat the room with the gas stove.

I heard of wild parties at 590 and irate neighbours calling the police. By the time the police arrived they had been seen shining their flashlights in the confusion of alleyways. When they got to the door everyone would be listening quietly to the record player doing some subdued Mozart.

When 590 was occupied by Mike Nimchuck, poet George Miller and a transplanted Londoner named Mike Farnel, the trio encountered a lost dog in obvious distress. While walking the poor animal would occasionally scrunch down and howl as if in great mental anguish. There seemed to be nothing physical to account for the behavior. It gradually abated. After about three weeks the impoverished denizens of 590 could no longer afford the dog food. I was sleeping on a couple of benches in the Bohemian Embassy at the time and the large creaky room wasn’t exactly friendly at four in the morning. A friendly dog nearby sounded just fine and the Bohemian exchequer was getting big enough to buy dog food.

The three lads had come up with a name. The name had to be the antithesis of the dog’s real character. Rasputin was decided upon and appended to the most polite and mannerly dog I have ever met. She was reddish brown in colour. Someone had cut off what would have been a proper tail. She was a foot and a half high and weighed about forty pounds with a natural desire to please.

Rasputin was in attendance at just about every performance at the Bohemian Embassy for a period of over five years. Initially she would politely accept any food offered by a patron, then one day she quit cold turkey. She must have been sick in her own quiet and private way. For the next few years you couldn’t entice her with a pastry of any kind.

The first time I took her to the CBC the elderly and somewhat military Commissionair refused her admission. Outside I told her to “Stay”. I got caught up with friends and colleagues in the TV News department and totally forgot my new dog. Hours later it came to me and I rushed back to her. She wagged her stub of a tail gratefully. How could I apologize? I believe we bonded then.

Soon Rasputin would have total access to both the Radio and the TV buildings at the Jarvis Street CBC location. She would go on little safaris by herself and glean wonderful lint covered cough drops rescued from the bottoms of lady employee’s purses and doubtless from some men’s.

On one occasion Rasputin was let out of the house where I was living on Selby Street. It was bitterly cold. I had gone to Buffalo and the dog had no way of getting back in. When I returned she was not there. I was sick at heart but decided to try the CBC radio building just in case she had gone there. The receptionist said, “Where were you? Rasputin has been here since ten thirty this morning.”

I never put a collar on her until her eyesight was beginning to go hence she never had a leash. This remarkable little dog wouldn’t let me get more than five feet away if we were walking in any sort of a crowd. She went on the subway and street cars like a veteran. I was traveling with her on a particularly crowded subway. Believing she was right with me I exited to see her through a forest of legs and the door closing before I could stop them. Rasputin was too polite to push past the people in front of her. I was distraught. She showed up at home about an hour later. When I lived at 529 Yonge Street on the third floor, I would let her out and the lads who operated the men’s wear store at street level would open my bottom door to let her in. On a couple of occasions I followed unbeknownst to her. After she had gotten a goody at one location and had gone on to the next I would make myself known to the good Samaritans on her route.

One day Ras and I were traveling on the subway. We came to our stop at the Wellesley station. I said, “Come on Raspy,” and turned to see her trapped behind what seemed like a sea of legs and the door closed before I could intervene. I was panic stricken but returned home and contemplated trips to the Humane Society. In less than an hour she showed up at my door. Remarkable.

In the years since I was blessed by Rasputin’s company city ordinances have vastly curtailed the liberty which dogs used to have. On some levels I am relieved that my little dog could have the freedom of what she did and when. She was obviously bright. She could express herself in those less restrictive days.

Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster were delighted to have Rasputin in attendance at all of our rehearsals at the CBC’s Sumac Street facility and later when we were in the studio she would hang out in the dressing room or in the make-up room. I reckon she didn’t miss one session in eight years.

Glenn Gould became one of Rasputin’s greatest fans and as a result Glenn and I had some good, friendly but pithy conversations. Any conversation with Glenn tended to be pithy. At one point we talked about getting Canadian TV rights to Beyond the Fringe so that he could play and sing those wonderful classical music take-offs fashioned and originally performed by Dudley Moore.

A writer/poet friend, Tom Arnett was sharing the 590 flat and was a good buddy of Rasputin’s. The two of them decided to go for a walk. As they were walking up Yonge Street a lady started shouting “Lucky, Lucky!” It turned out that Rasputin had been her dog. Tom brought the lady back to meet me. She was a middle aged Cockney char woman with a wonderful accent who had lost Rasputin (Lucky) downtown. I told her that she must have been a terrific owner and that Rasputin must have been greatly loved. Heavy heartedly I was obliged to give the dog back to her.

She took Rasputin and brought me the replacement dog she had gotten. I felt sick and downhearted. The new dog was sweet but had scrambled brains by comparison. Within a week the dear lady returned. “I think Rasputin would be much happier with you. I’ll take back the new dog.” I can’t remember if I was able to hold back the tears. Probably not because I admit to being a terrible sentimentalist. Like TV host Jack Parr I cry at supermarket openings.

Being part owner of a Beatnik coffee house and beginning a career as a writer/performer was not always financially rewarding and when Rasputin came back I wasn’t able to do the right thing. It is no small regret that I lost touch with that lady. I took this kindly woman’s name and phone number hoping to reward her in some way when my wallet would permit. By the time that happened I had lost the information.

I remember encountering Adrienne Clarkson in the CBC parking lot. I had written a couple of shows in the series “Take 30” which she hosted with Paul Soles. “What are you doing this summer, Don?” she queried. I replied that I had bought an airplane ticket to go around the world. “Oh”, she said excitedly, “May I take care of Rasputin?” I had to regretfully inform her that my sister Betty had already spoken for her.

In her declining years Rasputin got a little forgetful and one day she dropped her bundle on the second floor of the radio building. The irascible announcer for whom I had been a lifelong fan, namely Alan McPhee came out of the door and informed me of Rasputin’s little accident. “Where”? I pleaded, “I’d better go and clean it up right away.” “Don’t worry, I’ve done it already but I have to tell you where the blessed event happened. Your dog had the critical insight to do it right outside Jack Crain’s office.”

Again one day transversing the CBC parking lot I saw McPhee coming towards me with his head purposely down. Totally ignoring me he said, “Hello Rasputin” and continued. I waited the appropriate amount of time and turned to see McPhee watching my amusement.

I will not tell you about Rasputin’s death. I can’t.

One of the greatest honours I had at CBC was to be guested on Max Ferguson’s show with its co-host Alan McPhee. Max’s Rawhide show had been a huge hit with me when I was in High School. I was in awe of Max and almost in awe of Alan. A short time later I was able to guest Alan on my own show a Saturday afternoon epic called “The Program that dares to be known by bad taste alone.”

Alan confessed to me that he had always wanted to do The Program with me and felt quite jealous of his friend Bob Willson. I had written a sketch about Canada’s Hockey Hall of Obscurity which was located just a couple of thousand miles off the Trans Canada Highway somewhere between Nanaimo and Saint John’s. One of the exhibits was a jar of teeth which had been collected by the ice sweeper Moose McAndrew at the Upper Muskadoboit Arena. Bob was the narrator and Alan was the interviewer. I played the curator. I can’t remember who broke first but soon all three of us were in hysterics. The director in the control room finally had to send two of us out in the hall so that one of us could actually deliver the next line. It was all on tape but there was some serious editing to be done.

At one time Alan talked with Carol Robinson and me about joining us on a team of the Pub Quiz League but a bad case of the Shingles and Tic Dolorous got in the way. Before Alan died he slipped quietly into Alzheimer’s disease, a sad fate for that irascible, cantankerous and thoroughly loveable member of the CBC announce staff.

The CBC offered me a radio series, a two hour epic called ‘The Program That Dares to be Known by Bad Taste Alone.’ Announcer Bob Willson and I would co-host. I was told that at some time in the show I would have to play the top ten tunes of the week. Other than that I had a free reign. In addition to the engineer I asked for a sound technition. “Why?” they queried. I mumbled something about commercial radio DJ’s strangulated introductions involving bells and whistles. But instead of pumping up the intros I took the appropriate records into the sound library several hours before showtime. There I instructed the sound man to destroy these. In the middle of one of the top ten tunes from the hit parade a toilet might flush, a lion might roar or a gun battle might ensue. A sound man named Don Burgess was brilliantly creative. Receiving a plethora of kudos, I had to be honest. I had no idea what was in the sound library. It was guys like Burgess, Freddie Tudor and Alex Sheridan who deserved the glory.

Sound men at the CBC were usually restricted to formal scripting. There wasn’t a lot of room for creativity. That I was able to give them. Perhaps the greatest sound man was Alex Sheridan. He worked with Max Ferguson. Occasionally I would go into Studio G after Max had done his morning show. Max’s script was left on the table. It consisted of the front page of the Globe and Mail newspaper with circles around selected articles. That was it. Max would improvise the show on what he had circled, playing the parts of world leaders and local politicians. Added to his genius Alex Sheridan and what sound men refer to as their cocktail bar, a large portable set of turn tables and other paraphernalia for making a vast array of sounds. Alex could read Max’s mind and anticipate the appropriate sound or background noise.

At the time I didn’t feel that the demise of the Bohemian Embassy would be that hard on me. I even convinced myself that it was O.K. In retrospect I think I was semi-consciously devastated. Fortunately there was a demand for my talents in radio. The CBC was renowned for its BBC styled announcers who were almost machine-perfect in their delivery. The theory was to keep away any emotional emphasis in news broadcasts. Avoid personal interpretation even in music shows. In the 1960’s the staff announcers seemed a little too starchy and impersonal. Folks with the awe shucks approach were getting work, folks like Peter Gzowsky, Danny Finkelman and me. I admit to a touch of the cracker barrel in my delivery. For a short but intensive time I was a hot property in radio and in TV commercials and by 1965 I had joined Wayne and Shuster primarily to do dialect work and eccentric characters. But by June first 1966 I didn’t have a home base, a place where I really felt comfortable like the Bohemian Embassy.

Jan Tennant had been uncomfortable teaching at Castlefrank High School. Her initial motives were good but interest in things academic were almost totally lacking in her students. “Gee Miss Tennant, why do we have to take all this grammar? We’ve tooken it all before.” Jan would quote this statement from one of her charges in a combination of amusement and consternation.

I had always believed Jan to be exceptional in the way she spoke. Her voice quality was pleasant. She spoke comfortably in sentences without sounding antiseptic. At that time I was second banana on a radio series produced by Ron Gordon. Al Maitland, the legendary announcer was the host. I was co-host and contributing writer under Warren Wilson, a creative lad for whom I had colossal respect. I got Ron Gordon to let Jan write and voice an item on teen fashions. He was very reluctant, because of possible accusations of nepotism, which were going around at the CBC of the time. It seemed like paranoia because we were not officially married. Jan’s writing and delivery were thoroughly professional. Everyone associated with the show agreed but Ron would not use her again.

Feminist groups were on the move and feisty. To be sure CBC had women’s voices on programs for kiddies and shows of specifically women’s interest but the announce staff was all and exclusively men. Because of outside pressure, Maggie Morris was given a three month trial period, at the end of which her work was rated as inadequate. It was absurd. Maggie was a thoroughgoing professional with a long track record of women’s shows to her credit. But she was accused of using feminism to cover her inadequacies when she fought her ouster. It was a standard argument used by the male establishment. A hue and cry went up. CBC had to hire a woman and soon.

I encouraged Jan to audition. She did and at the end of her trial period became the first female staff announcer on English radio at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She was a pioneer. Eventually she left CBC and for a while was news anchor on the Global TV Network. At one point I had tried to push Jan as a CBC sportscaster. It was inevitable that there soon would be such a position open to women. In spite of her interest and participation in sport and the fact that she had a degree in Physical and Health Education from the University of Toronto, my entreaties were premature.

Our relationship had been deteriorating. A lot had to do with her perfectly legitimate scenario for our future together. I was loaded with fear that my career was a bit of a flash in the pan. I expected everything to come tumbling down. A Broadway credit for Beyond the Fringe plus a solid beginning with Wayne and Shuster didn’t seem to suffice for me. I didn’t realize it at the time but I had been quietly devastated by the closing of the Bohemian Embassy. Jan and I went our separate ways. She was in no way to blame. Let’s put it this way. I goofed
.
My last real radio series was on then. It was presented live and on Sunday evening. Jan was not likely to be in the radio building. Strangely for me it was a sports show, not an area of intense interest for me. My Co-host Bob Willson (Later Don Chevrier) had to read the weekend sports scores. I came dangerously close to being fired from the show and replaced by newspaper columnist Tiny Bennet. While Bob was reading the scores, I turned on my microphone, leaned into it and snored. In those days you could be mockish about religion, even God but “Thou Shalt Not Mess with the Sports Scores.”

I absented myself from CBC radio. Jan’s star was beginning to rise. Just meeting her in the hallway of the radio building caused me trauma. Everything I said sounded clod awkward and guaranteed to push her further from me. Our relationship was beyond repair. The Wayne and Shuster Show was rehearsed in a building quite remote from the Broadcasting Centre but we would spend a week in Studio 7 at the Centre for each show. I dreaded lunch in the cafeteria in case Jan would show up but I had to eat.

For the next few years I was not a happy camper. I missed Jan. I missed the Bohemian Embassy. I missed the radio work I had been doing at CBC. Beyond the Fringe came to the rescue. The Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo New York found out about my Broadway and touring involvement. They asked me to direct and perform in “Fringe” at the Studio Arena. It occurred to me that if I had a Toronto cast, I could bring them back and do a cabaret version in my home town. I immediately thought of Roy Wordsworth and Barrie Baldaro. Roy brought with him an added bonus. He was a very astute producer.

Getting a person who could handle the Dudley Moore material was nothing if not daunting. One had to handle very complicated piano and singing as well as some demanding acting. An actor friend of Roy Wordsworth’s and mine came up with a suggestion. Joyce Campion introduced us to Stuart Hamilton. We couldn’t have hoped for better.

Stuart was already vocal coach for half the Canadian Opera Company. He would shortly
have his New York Town Hall debut as a pianist and there would come a time in his career when Stuart would be flown every week to participate in the New York Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. He became Mr. Opera in Canada. As I write Stuart is still heavily involved with the CBC radio opera broadcasts. Some years after his involvement with our company of Beyond the Fringe Stuart claimed that it was the happiest time of his life. His amazing sense of humour certainly made Barrie, Roy and me more than delighted.

I felt insecure about directing and performing at the same time. A fine British actor living in Toronto, Nick Simons by name took the role I would have done and agreed quite generously to have me replace him when we brought the show back to Toronto from Buffalo. He became our stage manager Upstairs at Old Angelo’s. At the time I had a fairly high profile due to the Bohemian Embassy, the Village Revues, “Fringe” in New York and Wayne and Shuster. My name would sell more tickets. After Old Angelo’s and a summer as part of the Charlottetown Festival and a tour of the Maritimes (18 months) we had become the longest running live show in Anglophone Canadian theatrical history. A few months later Dave Broadfoot’s Montreal production called “Squeeze” passed us by.

Directing Beyond the Fringe was difficult. My impulses were to give everyone a line reading, a quick way to alienate the cast. I had done the sermon monologue in the U.S. company but assigned it to Roy, because in my heart of hearts I knew he could do it better than I could. To keep from giving him direction on just about every line was agony but I knew he would be brilliant because he listened to audiences. The first few nights would be highly instructional for Roy. His performances were amazing.

When Roy and I produced Beyond the Fringe Upstairs at Old Angelo’s we did well even financially. Roy had determined that the back stage folk at Buffalo’s Studio Arena Theatre hated management. Roy had mentioned that we were going to a cabaret version in Toronto. As we were climbing into my station wagon for the return trip to Toronto all the props and costumes from the Buffalo show were presented to us. We tried to refuse but they insisted. It was a large saving for us. The Angelo’s production made its mounting costs back in the first four performances, an unheard of event in Canadian professional theatre.

The success of that show was in no small part due to our public relations representative. Fiona McCall had worked for Gino Emprey who was the most accomplished and well known person in the field. Gino’s company had handled Ed Mirvish’s Royal Alexandra Theatre and Fiona was in there pitching. Fi was branching out on her own and we were her first clients. I had known Fiona and quietly adored her for some years. She regularly attended the Bohemian Embassy, particularly on Jazz night. In fact she married Jim Mitchell who was base player with Brian Westwood’s group.

Fiona’s relationship with Jim eventually soured and ended. She had always been interested in sailing and while indulging that passion married a fellow enthusiast, Paul Howard. When their daughter Penny was six and their son Peter was four, the family squeezed themselves into a thirty foot steel hulled boat and went around the world. They wrote two very good books, “All in the Same Boat” and “Still in the Same Boat.”

As I write this in my seventy first year (2004) Paul and Fiona are rounding Cape Horn on a new venture. Both Penny and Peter are working in oceanography. By the way, Paul Howard never learned to swim.

I was an emotional wreck in 1969 but I had money in the bank. I bought a ticket to go around the world as if I could leave thoughts of Jan in Toronto. Arriving in London I visited Margaret Penman a high school friend who was doing her PhD in English. She was leaving for Toronto for the summer so I was able to rent her apartment. I looked up Robin Grove-White who had come out of the Cambridge Footlights Revue and his good buddy “Whispering” Paul McDowell, vocalist from the popular skiffle group “The Temperance Seven.” They had done a very successful two man revue at the Bohemian Embassy. I learned that my old friend John Morgan founding member of the “Air Farce” was in town. Before I knew it I was in a television special on BBC.

Pal Al

While staying at Marg Penman’s apartment, I got a phone call from Al Boliska in Toronto. Al had been a famous DJ with radio station CHUM. Some people attributed the station’s great success to Al. At the height of his career Al had 42 per cent of the greater Toronto morning radio audience, a remarkable achievement when one considers the number of choices available. Al’s success was so staggering in the Toronto of the time that I presumed him to have a colossal ego and wondered how many people he had wounded on the way up the ladder. My buddy Dave Harriman kept telling me what a great guy Al truly was. Dave was right. Al was kind, generous and amazingly self effacing. He asked me if I would consider abandoning my travel plans and return to do a TV series at CHCH in Hamilton. “Who’s writing?” I asked. “Dave Harriman and me,” was his reply. “OK,” Quoth I.

Al and I became close friends. Once a week we would have dinner at the Continental Café, a Hungarian restaurant on Toronto’s Bloor Street. The show on CH rested in a revue format with social and political satire with a cast of Al, a gorgeous and talented lady named Peggy Mahon and me. But it had a rocky beginning. The producer balked at the inclusion of a particular sketch. Al walked out in high dudgeon. Had I come back from a trip around the world just to do a single show? The president of CHCH TV called Al and asked him to come to Hamilton to discuss the problem. Al said, “No, you come to Toronto.” The meeting took place in a compromise location, namely Oakville, half way between the two cities. I would be employed for the next twenty five weeks.

A couple of years later I got a phone call from Al’s girlfriend, Beverley Roberts. She said, “Don, whatever you’re doing, drop it and get up to Al’s as quick as you can.” She greeted me at the door and ushered me into Al’s bedroom. He was lying in the fetal position on the bed. Bev had removed the bottle he had been nursing. Bev said in a commanding voice, “Al, you’ve got 10 minutes to get up and dressed.” When 15 minutes had elapsed, she called an ambulance. She told me to take note of everything that happened. She was leaving to go to work for Michael Langham at the Guthrie Theatre in Minnessota. She said that I was the only one of Al’s friends who she felt was responsible enough to keep an eye on him. I was honoured by the compliment. Indeed I had to break into Al’s place on at least three occasions and repeat the procedure. He would be sober for six or seven months at a time, then crash into binge drinking.

Al took up with another lady, Pamela. They moved in together into an apartment off the Don Valley Parkway, a difficult place to get to by public transportation and at the time I lacked a car. Al would host the Retriever Trials at the Sportsman show and I worried that old cronies would show up and say, “Come on Al, lets go to the pub and knock back a few.” It was amazing how many fans would tell Al that they listened to him every morning, when he hadn’t been on the radio for six or seven years. I called the next day and he was slurring his words. “I’ll come up I said.” “No Don, Pamela’s here. I’ll be OK.” When I called the next morning, Al sounded cold sober. I was greatly relieved. That same afternoon about four o’clock Pam called and said, “Al’s dead.”

I was certain that I had not properly informed Pamela about Al’s situation. I cursed the fact that I had not gone to his house right away, when there was evidence of trouble. He had told me on one occasion that he didn’t want a religious funeral but when his remains were shipped back to Montreal it became obvious that his family’s wishes were important at a time like this. There was a Catholic ceremony. We all went out to the cemetery and after the priest had done his graveside duties a gypsy violinist played a couple of tunes and ended the short concert with the traditional Hungarian finale. In this number the melody is stated, then repeated. The third time the melody abruptly stops at the most inconvenient note. The violinist then puts his instrument and its bow back in the case. Everyone then leaves. The tune was frustratingly incomplete just like Al’s life. He was 39.

New Direction

Fortunately I was contacted by Bruce Lawson at the St. Lawrence Centre for the performing Arts. He and the Centre’s founder Mavor Moore asked me to direct the first production in what would later be named the Jane Mallet Theatre. The show was called “You’d Better Believe It” and starred Julie Amato, formerly Miss New York State and winner of the talent contest at the Miss America Pageant. Jack Duffy who had replaced Frank Sinatra with the Tommy Dorsey Band and had a great reputation as a comic actor and Keith Hampshire, who was a big star in Great Britain due to the activities of off shore radio and Almeta Speaks, an extraordinary vocalist, who recently finished a multiyear contract singing at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, France, rounded out the cast.

One young woman who auditioned was Jane Eastwood. On talent alone she was Julie’s equal but at the time unknown. There was not sufficient material for an extra woman in the show and she was an unknown at the time. Julie Amato’s name would sell tickets. Later I was able to promote Jane’s talent to Johnny and Frank on the Wayne and Shuster Show where she eventually made several appearances.

Toronto in that era had discovered after hours clubs. Somehow the good folks at the St. Lawrence Centre thought it would be a good idea to put the show on at ten o’clock in the evening, a mistake in my estimation. Pound for pound the audience reaction was terrific. You could not say the audiences were large.

In My Own Write

Alfie Scopp was a good friend. He loved the Bohemian Embassy and had done his best to encourage lots of talented people. He had played Clarabel the Clown in the Canadian Howdy Doody Show and had a major role in Norm Jewison’s film, Fiddler on the Roof. Alf had been a long time friend and sometime writing partner with Frank Peppiate and John Aylesworth. Frank and John had been corralled by the Global Television Network to produce their opening flagship show, a two hour epic, five days a week with an old time variety format. Alfie recommended me and I was hired.

I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you something of Peppiate and Aylesworth. They worked together at one of Toronto’s larger advertising agencies. One day the president of the agency came proudly into work sporting a brand new straw hat sometimes refered to as a boater. It had been manufactured by the Dunn Hat company of Great Britain and had been purchased at an exclusive shoppe on King Street. Frank and John went to the store and bought two, one a half size larger than the presidents and one a half size smaller. They replaced their boss’s hat with the large one which when placed on his head slipped down bending his ears out. He nervously removed it smiling self consciously and waved good-bye. Next day Frank and John found that the pres. had put some paper stuffing in the inside hat band to make it fit. The two lads then took the stuffing out of the larger hat and placed appropriately in the smallest version of the hat which could only perch on his head like a famous silly portrait of Stan Laurel from the Laurel and Hardy movies.

After doing a stint as writers and producers with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation they headed south for a fabulous career on U.S. television. They wrote the Perry Como Show, wrote and produced U.S. network TV specials for Bob Goulet and Julie Andrews and produced the Sonny and Cher Show.

Having preceded the arrival of Lorne Green in Hollywood, they had a visit from Lorne. In fact both the lads had taken courses from Lorne’s academy in Toronto. Lorne told Frank and John that he had just purchased a new Volkswagen Beetle. It had no gas gauge. When the main gas tank was empty the engine would splutter as a signal to kick a lever in the floor for the auxiliary tank to take over. Then it was time to get a refill. Lorne had the car for over a week without kicking the lever. Unbeknownst to Lorne, Frank and John went about filling his tank. Lorne started to worry. Days turned into weeks and he still had not exhausted his main tank. Phone calls to the dealer turned into visits, inspections and finally Lorne had the whole motor dismantled and reassembled.

I remember suggesting to Frank Peppiate that perhaps the reason Lorne had divorced his first wife and married his astrologer was that she might have had a heavenly explanation based on the exact moment Lorne’s automobile came off the assembly line.

Another story I feel compelled to relate concerns Hee Haw. Management at the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) was upset by the great ratings of a show called Laugh-in on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). Several Canadians were involved with the writing and production of Laugh-in so CBS got in touch with Yonge Street Productions, namely Frank Peppiate and John Aylesworth.

The challenge went out. “Can you guys do a Laugh-in for us but disguise it so it won’t look as if we are copying NBC.” The lads discussed it with Alfie Scopp and Alf suggested that they look at country music record sales, reminded them of the great success of Country Hoedown on CBC and informed them that Gordie Tapp, the Hoedown Host was a walking encyclopedia of jokes suitable to a country music audience.

Frank and John’s musical tastes resided primarily in the Big Band era. They had in fact written and produced The Jack Kane Show for CBC in which I got dressed as Tiny Tim and did a dime store imitation rendition of Tiptoe Through the Tulips. But it seemed that Alf’s suggestion put them onto something. Country music sales were astounding and country humour was not dead but very much alive in the persons of Minnie Pearl, Grandpa Jones, Canada’s own Charlie Farquarson (Don Harron), and Gordie Tapp himself. The result of course was Hee Haw and a pilot show was consequently made in Nashville, where else?

Peppiate and Aylesworth stumbled on a very useful idea. Let’s say you come up with a gag involving Queen Elizabeth the first, Sir Walter Raleigh, a cloak and a puddle. You can doubtless come up with several other variations using those elements. You shoot all of them at the same time when the set up is available then sprinkle the sketches in shows 7, 12, 20 and 33. With a revue style format it makes perfect sense.

Another innovation was to shoot thirty-nine episodes (the Fall, Winter, Spring TV season) in a couple of months. This meant cue cards all over the place and pains taking
editing later. For the performers it was a heaven sent concentration of activity with blistering focus and long hours but it relieved them for the balance of the year so they could make financially rewarding personal appearances that would in turn promote the TV show.

Crunch time arrives. The brass at CBS filed into the viewing room to see and judge the pilot. John and Frank awaited the collective decision. The New York and Los Angeles represented were laughingly mortified. “You gotta be kidding” they said, “It certainly is a variation on Laugh-in and you’ve disguised it beautifully…too beautifully.” “Those jokes are right off the cob.” “Viewers will turn that show off after the fourth corny joke.” “You did what we asked for. We should have been more specific.” “If you can flog the show elsewhere, maybe on some small town or rural outlets, be our guests.”

They took their pilot to a syndicator named Jack Rhodes who within about six months had more stations showing the series than CBS had affiliates. In the mid 1970’s HeeHaw had established itself as the seventh most popular TV series up to that time. It belonged to Yonge Street Productions owned By Frank Peppiate and John Aylsworth.

The Peppiate and Aylesworth Global Television production was mercifully away from the CBC where Jan Tennant’s star was rising. Dave Harriman was hired at the same time and both of us were offered the jobs of co-head writers. Dave refused. He just wanted to write. I was it by default. I took Frank and John to see Second City Show because there was one writer/performer I wanted on our writing staff. Because I knew all the cast of Second City at the time and was on friendly terms with the owner Andrew Alexander, I had spent some time back stage. I noticed that one particular cast member contributed heavily to the planning for the improvisational set. He was the one I particularly wanted. They hired him. His name was Dan Aykroyd.

It was not my first encounter with Dan. Some time before Roy Wordsworth and I had produced a cabaret revue at the Theatre in the Dell. We called it “The Dell Pickle”. When asked to take the show to the Café Andre in Montreal, the cast was not prepared to go except for Rosemary Radcliffe. I needed two good male performers. I had met a remarkably talented girl named Valri Bromfield who had all the technical facility of a Lilly Tomlin and she told us about a sometime boyfriend. He was currently driving a mail truck. Roy Wordsworth and I got Dan Aykroyd signed up as a member of Actor’s Equity. Dan and another fine performer named Stuart Gillard did the show for us in Montreal. Roy and I feel good that we were able to recognize Dan’s remarkable ability and give him a bit of a timely boost.