Lang Lang

Lang Lang (Chinese; pinyin: Láng Lǎng) (born June 14, 1982) is a Chinese (Manchu ethnicity) pianist from Shenyang in Liaoning province, China.

When he was only two years old, he saw Tom playing piano in The Cat Concerto, a Tom and Jerry cartoon on TV (Tom was attempting the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-sharp minor composed by Franz Liszt). According to Lang Lang, this first contact with Western music is what motivated him to learn piano. He began lessons with Professor Zhu Ya-Fen at age three. At the age of five, Lang won the Shenyang Piano Competition and performed his first public recital.

When he was nine years old, Lang Lang was nearing his audition for Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music, but he had difficulties with his lessons, and was expelled from his piano tutor's studio for lack of talent. His music teacher at his state school noticed Lang Lang's sadness, and decided to comfort him by playing a record of Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 10 in C Major, K. 330; she asked him to play with the slow movement. This reminded Lang of his love of the instrument. "Playing the K. 330 brought me hope again," recalled Lang.

Lang was admitted into the Conservatory, studying under Professor Zhao Ping-Guo. In 1993, Lang won the Xing Hai Cup Piano Competition in Beijing, being awarded first prize for outstanding artistic performance at the Fourth International Young Pianists Competition in Germany the next year. In 1995, at 13 years of age, he played the Op. 10 and Op. 25 Chopin Etudes, at Beijing Concert Hall and, in the same year, won first place at the Tchaikovsky International Young Musicians' Competition in Japan, playing Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert broadcast by NHK Television. At 14 he was a featured soloist at the China National Symphony's inaugural concert, which was broadcast by CCTV and attended by President Jiang Zemin.[citation needed] The following year he began studies with Gary Graffman and Dick Doran at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.

Lang Lang has played sold out recitals and concerts in many major cities and is the first Chinese pianist to be engaged by the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and the top American orchestras.[citation needed] He has inspired over 35 million Chinese children to learn classical piano – a phenomenon coined by The Today Show as "the Lang Lang effect." The Chicago Tribune's music critic called him "the biggest, most exciting young keyboard talent I have encountered in many a year of attending piano recitals". Lang Lang has garnered praise from musicians and critics around the word - the conductor Jahja Ling remarked, “Lang Lang is special because of his total mastery of the piano... He has the flair and great communicative power.” National Public Radio's Morning Edition remarked that "Lang Lang has conquered the classical world with dazzling technique and charisma." It is often noted that Lang Lang successfully straddles two worlds - classical prodigy and rock-like "superstar", a phenomenon summed up by London Times journalist Emma Pomfret, who wrote, "I can think of no other classical artist who has achieved Lang Lang's broad appeal without dumbing down."

Lang Lang's performances have also been criticized. His performance style has been referred to as having "soggy rhythms and heavy phrasing." and as being "truly boring", "just bad" and "unendurable". Critics who feel that his playing is vulgar and lacks sensitivity have given him the nickname "Bang Bang". Others have described him as immature, though praised his ability to "conquer crowds with youthful bravado". Conversely, the same style has led his performance to be described as one of "blazing speed and thunderous power... Lang's daredevil tendencies found a gratifying outlet." Some critics have argued that Lang is at his best playing the Classical repertoire as opposed to Romantic composers such as Chopin. However, his growth in recent years has also been noted in The New Yorker: "the ebullient Lang Lang is maturing as an artist."

Lang Lang is also well known for his exaggerated mannerisms and facial expressions while playing piano, which has also affected his recent performances, such as that of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-sharp Minor and Réminiscences de Don Juan. This has received criticism, though others have defended his displays, arguing "[Lang's] interpretations aren't just expressions of feeling but the feelings themselves." His "kinetic display" has also been described as "fun to watch", because "underneath the gymnastics, there's clearly some serious musical thinking going on."

In 2001 he made his sold-out Carnegie Hall debut with Yuri Temirkanov, travelled to Beijing with the Philadelphia Orchestra on a tour celebrating its 100th anniversary, during which he performed to an audience of 8,000 at the Great Hall of the People, and made an acclaimed BBC Proms debut, prompting a music critic of the British newspaper The Times to write, "Lang Lang took a sold-out Royal Albert Hall by storm... This could well be history in the making".[ In 2003, he returned to the BBC Proms for the First Night concert with Leonard Slatkin. After his recital debut in the Berlin Philharmonic, the Berliner Zeitung wrote: "Lang Lang is a superb musical performer whose artistic touch is always in service of the music".

Lang Lang is featured soloist on the Golden Globe winning score of The Painted Veil composed by Alexandre Desplat and can be heard on the soundtrack of The Banquet composed by Tan Dun. Lang Lang records exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon, and every CD he has made has entered the top classical charts as well as many pop charts around the globe. His album of the First and Fourth Beethoven Piano concertos with L’Orchestre de Paris and Maestro Christoph Eschenbach debuted at #1 on the Classical Billboard Chart.

Lang Lang has performed for numerous international dignitaries including the former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, President George H. W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, President Hu Jintao of China, President Horst Koehler of Germany, Prince Charles, as well as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Lang Lang was inducted into the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame as a "Vancouver Favourite" in November, 2009.

Arden, Jann

Jann Arden (born Jann Arden Anne Richards; March 27, 1962) is an acclaimed and award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter.
Arden was born and raised near Calgary, in Springbank, Alberta, and she attended Springbank Community High School. She spent most of the 1980s playing her music in bars and busking. Her breakthrough came with her critically acclaimed 1993 debut album Time for Mercy and her first single "I Would Die For You". Her success grew with 1994's Living Under June, which featured her biggest hit to date outside of Canada, "Insensitive", which was released as a single from the soundtrack to the Christian Slater film "Bed of Roses"(number 12 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100). Another single from that same album, "Could I Be Your Girl", has also had significant, and consistent airplay on Canadian adult contemporary radio since its release, and in an unusual move for a Jann Arden song, even featured a dance remix version which circulated on pop radio at the time.
Subsequent albums include 1997's Happy?, 2000's Blood Red Cherry (on which Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo sang backing vocals), and 2003's Love Is the Only Soldier. She also released a greatest hits album, Greatest Hurts, in 2001, and a live album, Jann Arden Live with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (2002). In 2005, she released her eighth album (her sixth album of new material) titled simply Jann Arden.
She also covered Leonard Cohen's "If it be your will..." on the 1995 Cohen tribute album Tower of Song. The song also appears on "Greatest Hurts" and was a b side to the Good Mother Single.
Although Arden's pop-rock songs are known for their sadness and tales of heartache, Arden is paradoxically also known for her gregarious sense of humour. Her personal stories, often involving her close-knit family, have won her great affection among her loyal fan base, and her concerts routinely sell out across Canada. In 1998, respondents to Chart magazine's year-end reader's poll named Arden the Canadian celebrity most deserving of her own talk show. Arden frequently does loving, homespun impersonations of her parents during her shows. As part of her public honesty about her family life, she has revealed that one of her brothers is serving a life sentence in prison, and that her song "Hangin' by a Thread" is dedicated to him.
Jann Arden released her ninth album, Uncover Me, on February 6, 2007. This album was her first comprising cover songs exclusively, except for one original piece, "Counterfeit Heart". This was followed by her Uncover Me Tour across Canada during the spring of 2007.
On the weekend of March 24, 2007, Jann Arden was admitted to intensive care for heart related concerns, diagnosed as Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, a condition commonly associated with acute stress and exhaustion.
She had a 2007 USA Summer tour with Michael Bublé and in 2008 she co-produced the Nashville based Country Crossover group SHeDAISY's latest Album.
Arden has received a total of 19 Juno Award nominations to date. She has won eight of them, including Songwriter of the Year in 1995 and 2002, and Female Artist of the Year in 1995 and 2001. She has also won awards at the MuchMusic Video Awards, the Prairie Music Awards, the Western Canadian Music Awards and at the ARIA (Alberta Recording Industry Association) Awards. In March 2006, it was announced that she would receive a star on Canada's Walk of Fame. In November 2006, Arden received the National Achievement Award from the Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) for having six singles reach the 100,000 airplay mark on Canadian radio.
In November 2007, Arden was inducted into the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame and was the winner of the International Achievement Award at the 2007 Western Canadian Music Awards
In September 2009, Arden released her tenth album, Free, and its first single A Million Miles Away. She also announced a cross-country Canadian tour, to begin in November 2009.

She was honoured as a "Vancouver Favourite" by the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame at a ceremony in November 2009. See the news release for the event here. >>>

Le Gon, Jeni

Born: August 14, 1916

Born Jennie Ligon in Chicago, Illinois, at age thirteen she successfully auditioned for the Count Basie Orchestra's chorus line. A year later, LeGon was already a cutting edge professional dancer. In her first screen role, LeGon danced with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson in Hooray for Love, which also featured Fats Waller. Her twenty-four film credits include: Broadway Melody of 1936, This Was Paris, (1937), Start Cheering, Fools for Scandal (1938), I Can't Give You Anything But Love (1940), Birth of the Blues, Sundown, Arabian Nights (1941), While Thousands Cheered, Stormy Weather (1943), Hi De Ho (1945), Easter Parade (1948), I Shot Jesse James (1949) and Somebody Loves Me (1952).

Since settling in Vancouver in 1969, Dr LeGon (in 2002, Oklahoma City University conferred upon her a doctorate of performing arts in American Dance) has taught tap dancing to countless children and others. She's still very active and travels to personal appearances with her husband, Frank Clavin.

Read Gary Barclay's latest Vancouver Jazz Profile, Jeni LeGon Tapping into history.

Armstrong, Kay

Born: September 22, 1921, Armstrong, British Columbia
Died: September 25, 2008, Vancouver, British Columbia
Birth Name: Kathleen Mae Armstrong

Kay Armstrong began dance classes in Vancouver with Helen Crewe followed by brief studies in the Okanagan Valley with Mary Pratton. She continued her training in Vancouver in the 1940s with the renowned teacher June Roper, who sent over seventy students to careers with various ballet companies including the Ballets Russes. Other of her teachers include Princess Sylvia Arfa, the daughter of the Persian ambassador to the Romanoff court and a Cecchetti diploma holder who lived in Vancouver during World War II, and Dorothy Wilson who took over Roper's B.C. School of Dancing in 1941.

In 1946 Armstrong found work in the ballet troupe of Radio City Music Hall in New York City. She returned to Vancouver in 1947 succeeding Wilson as principal of the B.C. School of Dancing. In 1948 she and her dancers were selected to perform her choreography Masquerade Ball at the 1948 Canadian Ballet Festival. Unfortunately, the Winnipeg flood of April 1948 prevented Armstrong's group from attending the festival.

In 1950, she formed Le Ballet Concert, which performed in the 1950 Canadian Ballet Festival. Her company danced Étude and Le Rêve Fantasque which were both included on New York critic Anatole Chujoy's list of favourite pieces from the festival. Her work Étude was brought into the repertoire of the recently formed National Ballet of Canada by Artistic Director Celia Franca and included in the company's 1951 debut. In fact, it was Franca who likened Armstrong to Anthony Tudor in an article published in the RAD Gazette where she wrote of Armstrong, "Like Tudor, she is interested in psychological studies and combines the classical and modern techniques ...". Étude was described by Chujoy as an abstract ballet and he noted how well trained the dancers were. Le Rêve Fantasque was a morality play about a girl who goes to the big city to seek fame and fortune. Armstrong played the lead and Chujoy described her performance as having "fine conviction" and "excellent authority". Armstrong also designed many of the costumes for her works. A piece at the 1952 Canadian Ballet Festival, for which Armstrong received critical acclaim for her dancing, was London Fantasia about a bride and groom who are killed in the WWII air raids over London and whose spirits return to envy the surviving lovers. Other choreographic works from the 1950s, such as The Legend of the Black Swan and Stanley Park Sketches, were inspired by regional themes. Armstrong also danced and choreographed for the musicals produced by Vancouver's Theatre Under the Stars in the 1950s.

Her group performed in many local productions throughout the 1950s and toured British Columbia and Alberta in 1954. Remarkable as a pedagogue and a choreographer, Armstrong was awarded the Ralph Hiltz award for choreography five times, and she received a citation for teaching in 1978 from the Dance in Canada Association. She closed her studios in 1989 but continued to teach weekly classes at a local community centre.

Biography and photo from the Dance Collection Danse website. For more information about Kay Armstrong, go to her biography there.

Baker, Michael Conway

Michael Conway Baker has many honours in the field of music. His awards include three GENIES (Canadian Academy Awards) for best film music; an (ACTRA) award for best music in a television series along with seven nominations. His concert music, now 153 works, includes symphonies, concertos and full length ballets (National ballet of Canada and Royal Winnipeg Ballet). In 1991 he received a Juno for his Piano Concerto. He is listed in the 2005 Groves Dictionary of Music. In 1997 he was invested with the Order of British Columbia and received the Queens Golden Jubilee Medal 2003.

Shaw, Kathryn

Kathryn Shaw is the Artistic Director of Studio 58, a position she has held since 1985. She received her B.A. in Dramatic Art from Whitman College and an M.F.A in acting from New York's Columbia University School of Arts. For the past 30 years, Ms. Shaw has directed for theatre companies across Canada and has taught acting for professional and community groups in British Columbia, Winnipeg and Halifax. She has also been a guest instructor at the National Theatre School in Montreal.

Ms. Shaw's most recent directorial work includes TRELAWNY OF THE WELLS for Studio 58, THE GREAT DEPRESSION by Joan MacLeod for Green Thumb Theatre/Studio 58, THE WEIR for the Belfry Theatre in Victoria and Western Canada Theatre Company in Kamloops, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM for Studio 58, BACHELOR BROTHERS ON TOUR for the Vancouver Playhouse, SKYLIGHT for the Belfry Theatre and DEATH OF A SALESMAN, THE COCKTAIL HOUR, THE FRONT PAGE and CYRANO DE BERGERAC for the Richmond Gateway Theatre. She also co-wrote and performed in Angry Actors’ production of FAMOUS DEAD STORIES.

She is a recipient of the 1996 SAM PAYNE AWARD given by UBCP/ACTRA in recognition of “humanity, integrity and the encouragement of new talent.” In 2001, Kathryn was on the first Siminovich Prize Jury which recognized an outstanding director from nominations received from across Canada. She has served as the Festival Adjudicator for Theatre BC’s Mainstage 1991 and 2004. Ms. Shaw has been nominated for four Jessie Richardson Awards for her directing work and has received two Jessie Richardson Awards for Direction and Best Production. She was the Artistic Director of West Coast Actors from 1978 – 1982. She is a founding member of Angry Actors, an independent theatre company.

Sinclaire, Denzal

A Toronto-born vocalist- pianist/composer, Denzal Sinclaire is no stranger to the international music scene. Over the past decade Sinclaire has earned his reputation as Canada’s most popular male jazz vocalist. Based in Vancouver, BC, Sinclaire is a graduate of Montreal’s McGill University where he received a Bachelor’s Degree in Jazz Performance. Denzal Sinclaire has graced the stages of numerous high-profile international jazz festivals in North America and Europe, performed with Symphony Orchestras, and starred in his own one hour television special for BRAVO! He has shared the bill with the likes of Diane Reeves.

Trudell, Pat

Pat Trudell photo (1955-1956 "Harmony House") compliments CBC Vancouver Archives

Pioneer Vancouver performer and musician Pat Trudell died on July 2nd, a few days prior to his 90th birthday.
He appeared on many CBC Radio and Television programs including The Jack Cullen Show (Radio Special, 1954), Harmony House (1955-1956), A Hatful of Music (1960), and Come Listen Awhile (1963-1964). He was honoured for his outstanding contribution to entertainment with a plaque embedded in the Starwalk on Granville Mall near the Orpheum Theatre.
Retired Vancouver broadcaster Gene Kern wrote the following tribute:
"It's my sad duty to announce the passing of piano player-entertainer extraordinaire, Pat Trudell passed away a few days before his 90'th birthday July 2nd. Many of you will remember Pat at the Sing-a-long Lounge at the Lulu Belle on Broadway. He was also the piano player for the kilt singing "Jock" Stuart & Ernie Prentice (Lolly-Too-Dum) at the George Five in the Georgia Hotel. He also handled the music for the Karioka Sessions with Dal Richards at the Devonshire. I also used Pat's musicianship to help me produce commercial jingles and music albums. In the 1960's I recorded a music album by Ernie Prentice and Pat Trudell that was pressed and distributed by London Records (oh those days of momo). For the past twenty years Pat has been entertaining at hospitals - Old folks, Care homes & White Cane clubs & schools. A Celebration Ceremony has been arranged by his daughter Susan Turner, at the Mt. Seymour United Church, 1200 Parkgate, North Vancouver on Friday July 24th at 2 p.m. We have lost another life-time friend."

McCance, Gail

Born December 18, 1924 in North Vancouver, passed away June 16, 2009


NEWS photo Terry Peters GAIL McCance designedthe 1963 production of Norma(in background) in which Joan Sutherland made her Vancouver debut.


A set designer on Broadway, a production designer for the movies, a veteran of 90 Theatre Under The Stars (TUTS) productions and an original founder of the Vancouver Opera Association, the Edgemont Village resident has a lifetime of memories behind him.
He was 12 when he assisted his father, Jack McCance, in building a set for the 1936 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream on the cricket pitch at Stanley Park's Brockton Point. The production was a Silver Jubilee celebration.
To create a forest from a playing field, McCance and his father chopped 50- and 60-foot cedar trees from a vacant lot in North Van and planted them in the turf. "We made huge screens covered with chicken wire and stuffed them with cedar bows to create the look of formal English hedges."
Father and son trucked the timber across the old Second Narrows crossing. To transport them across a hitch in the road, the logs had to be lowered over the side of the bridge and carried across aways. "Now you'd get six months for that," recalls McCance with a chuckle. Needless to say, their reforestation venture would not be repeated today.
McCance has many such stories of his years behind the scenes, from his early days at New York's Metropolitan Opera where he toiled in his 20s, to his years with TUTS and the Vancouver Festival and, later, with the Vancouver Opera Association.
"I founded the VOA for the simple reason that friends I knew were going to start an opera. They were really nice but they had no business acumen and they didn't sing very well," he says simply. But his contributions to the city's performing arts community can't be underestimated.

Chula, Babz

Award winning actor, Babz Chula, is one of Canada’s most accomplished, versatile and daring actors, and a fierce supporter of the independent film scene in this country. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards such as WIFV’s Woman of the Year Award, The Sam Payne Award, The John Juliani Award of Excellence, and numerous awards and recognitions from the Geminis, the Genies, The Leos and the Jesse Richardson Awards.

As well as her work in film, TV and theatre, she has recently performed in the Vancouver Opera’s production of, THREE PENNY OPERA, directed by Morris Panych. Babz has mentored and coached actors here as well as in Toronto, Montreal, NY, LA, and has taught school at VFS, Lyric School, and the International School of Film and Television in Havana, Cuba.

Lewis, Maria

Maria Lewis with Leonard Stepanik in the Mazurka from Swan Lake. Photo by Ken Bell. Courtesy of The National Ballet of Canada Archives.

Born: 1940
Died: January 9, 2004
Beloved Vancouver born dancer/teacher, Maria Lewis (also known as Mary Louise Crowhurst) attended Kitsalino High School and studied at the Rosemary Deveson School in Vancouver under Nicolai Svetlanoff , Betty Blygh and Jean Jepson. Maria had a notable career with the National Ballet of Canada, the Montreal Ballet, and on various television shows before returning to Vancouver to form the Maria Lewis Ballet Ensemble in 1969. For several years her senior students performed under that name.
In 1974 she took over the defunct Ballet Horizons and established a new company to be named Pacific Ballet Theatre. The company grew slowly to semi-professional regional status, with a repertoire of small works in classical style. Lewis retired as Director in 1980. She continued directing and teaching at the Pacific Ballet Theatre School.

Her Pacific Ballet Theatre was to become Ballet British Columbia in 1985. Maria Lewis died in 2004 leaving a legacy of thousands of young dancers whose lives she touched through her 35 years of teaching. She also left a bequest to the Vancouver Ballet Society to create and support its archives of dance in Vancouver and the Scotia Dance Centre to support young choreographers.

Wyman, Max

The remarkable Max Wyman is one of Canada’s leading cultural commentators. He moved to Canada in 1967 and served for three decades as arts critic and books editor for the two Vancouver daily newspapers. Among his books on the arts in Canada is Dance Canada; An Illustrated History (named in 2000 as one of the 165 best Canadian books of the century), and the biographies of dancer Evelyn Hart and jeweler Toni Cavelti. His latest book, The Defiant Imagination: Why Culture Matters, is a passionate manifesto asserting the central importance of the arts and culture to modern society. A former board member of the Canada Council for the Arts, he served from 2002 to 2006 as President of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. For his many services to the arts, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2001, and in 2003 received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from SFU. From November 2005-08, he was Mayor of Lions Bay, and chaired the first Metro Vancouver Regional Culture Committee.

Rose, Gabrielle

Born in BC and trained in Britain, Gabrielle Rose has worked in theatre, film and television for more than three decades. She has achieved recognition for her performances over the years, most recently as Amanda in The Glass Menagerie for which she received a Jessie nomination, Elizabeth in Elizabeth Rex (Jessie Award), Theresa in The Memory of Water (Jessie Award), and Dolores in The Sweet Hereafter, which won an Artistic Merit Award at the Vancouver Film Festival. She received a Genie nomination, and took the Best Ensemble Cast Award at the National Board of Review in New York. Other awards include Ellen in The Rhino Bros. (Leo Award), Mimi in The Adjuster (Best Supporting Actress Atlantic Film Festival), Barb in Mob Princess (Leo Award) and Corinne in The Country (Jessie nomination). Gabrielle can be seen in Mothers and Daughters at the Toronto Film Festival, an improvised film directed by Carl Bessai and cooperatively created by the cast. She just finished post-production work on the feature Grace. She resides in Vancouver with her family—actor Hrothgar Mathews and boys Liam and Finn.

Reiter, Bill

Bill Reiter has been a record store owner, a Rock 'n' Roll Deejay, a stage actor, a record producer and a radio and television commercial writer and producer. Aside from being one of the CKLG Boss Jocks in the late '60's he produced and hosted the first all-genre Black Music radio show in Canada - "Groovin' Blue" - on CKLG-FM during that same time. Over the past forty years, his distinctive voice has been heard on over 5,000 radio and television commercials. He was a central performer on the popular BCTV children’s television program "Zig Zag" and was a featured actor on, and contributing writer to, "Dr. Bundolo's Pandemonium Medicine Show" on national CBC radio. On stage, some of the characters Mr. Reiter's portrayed are Tevye in "Fiddler On The Roof", Pseudolus in "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" and Lenny in "Of Mice And Men". He has appeared in many films and also such well know television shows as "King of Kensington", Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour", "Beachcombers", "Switchback", "The Rene Simard Show", "Dr. Bundolo", "The Mike Neun Show" and countless others.

McBride, Terry

Terry McBride is one of the three founding owners of Canada's largest independent record labels, Nettwerk Productions, which includes Nettwerk Records (record label) Nettwerk Management (artist, DJ and Producer management), Music Publishing Nettmedia (web and dvd design) Artwerks (graphic and fashion design). Terry is the CEO of Nettwerk Productions. Terry, with partners Sarah McLachlan, Dan Fraser and Marty Diamond founded “Lillith Fair” raised over 10 million dollars for various women’s charities. Nettwerk Management’s exclusive clients include such million selling artists such as Avril Lavigne, Barenaked Ladies, Dido, Sarah McLachlan and Sum 41. Since its’ inception Nettwerk Productions has been responsible for the release of over 400 different albums that have amassed worldwide sales in excess of 100 milion albums. Terry has helped to create an international Musical powerhouse from a small Vancouver Record label.

Kiefer, Fanny

Fanny Kiefer moved to Vancouver from the state of Montana in 1971 and has the distinction of being the first woman to host her own radio talk show on CJOR. She also spent 10 years hosting talk shows on CKNW, and hosted her own program on CBC-TV and CBC Radio one. As one of this country’s best interviewers and one of the most well-known local media personalities, she continues to inform and entertain on her program Studio 4 with Fanny Kiefer on Shaw Television.

Harrison, Tom

Tom Harrison’s name is synonymous with rock music in Vancouver. Since the mid-1970’s Tom has written about pop and rock, first for the Georgia Straight, then with the Province. In addition, he hosted a longstanding radio show on CFOX and volunteered for countless events. Most people involved in music and/or the media burn out and become cynical, but Tom never has, feeling it is his duty to listen to every local demo tape as much as it is to listen to the latest big international releases. Due to this loyalty, he has built up a unique knowledge of local music, and a unique respect among local music fans. To varying degrees, he has written songs, recorded, toured, appeared onstage either as a drummer or singer, been a failed promoter and a failed manager. He has sung,played or produced 12 CDs. Writing about music can be as creative as writing a song, and to this he hopes he brings insight and empathy.

Gothe, Jurgen

Jurgen Gothe began his radio career at RIAS (Radio in the American Sector, Berlin) in 1952. Subsequently he rolled through early rock 'n roll in the later 50s (CHAT, Medicine Hat), talk radio in Vancouver in the 60s (CJOR), copy-writing (CKNW) and classical music programming and on-air hosting (CHQM, CJQM Winnipeg). He began regular contributions to the CBC networks around 1980 and created and hosted Canada's national drive-home show, DiscDrive on CBC Radio 2 in 1985 for an unprecedented 23 years, gathering an unrivaled three gold medals for program and presentation excellence from the New York International Radio Festival. He created a controversial radio show on KUSC Los Angeles that was labeled "the unfortunate Jurgen Gothe experiment" by the L.A. Times. (You can't buy press like that!) He has appeared as performer and host with more than a dozen of Canada's major symphony orchestras (including a series of performances in Garrison Keillor's 'Young Lutheran's Guide to the Orchestra' last season with the Victoria Symphony). Six seasons of food-and-wine-focused television--as both writer and host--are also in the mix of past performances. He remains one of Canada's most widely heard--and read--media personalities (including NUVO Magazine, The Georgia Straight) on his favourite subjects: food, wine and music. He has published two cookbooks, one restaurant guide and a collection of 'ramblings' as well as having released four CDs. He was a frequent 'working guest' at Umberto Menghi's Villa Delia Cooking School in Tuscany. This summer he is conducting traveling wine tastings aboard the Rocky Mountaineer train.

Gorling, Wendy

Wendy Gorling is co-creator for the famed Overcoat. As a director, she has created four non-verbal pieces with Morris Panych, (Overcoat has toured the world) and choreographed movement for plays such as Equus, Greeks, and Herringbone. She was the movement coach for Vancouver Opera’s Suzannah and became a member of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in 2008, creating the choreography for both Trojan Women and Moby Dick. As one of Vancouver’s favourite character actors, she was a member of two alternative theatre companies: Axis Theatre, which she co-founded, and Tamahnous Theatre. She has worked with both the Vancouver Playhouse and the Arts Club Theatre. Some of her well known acting roles have been in Flea in her Ear, The School for Scandal, The Visit, Seven Stories, Blithe Spirit, Ends of the Earth, Blue Window and Imaginary Invalid. A graduate of Ecole LeCoq in Paris, Wendy, a much respected instructor, has taught physical theatre and acting for over 30 years at Studio 58 and is featured in the book Theatre Without Borders as a master teacher. She has received six Vancouver Theatre Alliance Jessie Awards.

Campbell, Nicholas

Born in Toronto and raised in Montreal, Nicholas Campbell studied at the London Drama Studio and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. His debut film role was in The Omen in 1976. In the 1990s, he moved back to Canada after dividing his time between Toronto, Los Angeles and New York. His more than 40 starring film and television credits include series leads on Diamonds and The Hitchhiker. His movie roles include A Bridge Too Far (1977), The Eagle Has Landed (1976) and The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). In 1997, he won a Gemini Award for best actor for his work in CBC’s Major Crime. His television credits include Hoover vs. The Kennedys (Gemini nominee) and Going Home (BAFTA nominee). Other work includes Teamster (Gemini nominee) and the Diary of Evelyn Lau. He has worked extensively with David Cronenberg, appearing in such films as Naked Lunch, The Dead Zone, Fast Company and The Brood. Nicholas also wrote and directed the documentary Stepping Razor: Red X (Gemini nominee). For his role in Da Vinci’s Inquest, he received a Gemini for best performance in a continuing leading dramatic role. He currently resides in Vancouver.

Bublé, Michael

Michael Bublé is a Vancouver-born singer/songwriter who has performed in many local venues such as Babalu and played a leading role in the musical Red Rock Diner. He was discovered at a wedding by Canadian music icon David Foster. Foster and Paul Anka produced Buble’s first monster hit album and Bruce Allen took over his management. He is a worldwide star who continues to be proud of his B.C. roots. Buble has worked with many of the biggest names in music, including Tony Bennett, and has been featured in his own PBS concert special.

McFarlane, Monty

Born May 2, 1925
Died Dec. 15, 2003

Monty McFarlane (1925-2003) Monty was a funny man and a great artist on radio for 46 years but he is best remembered for a long stretch as morning man at Vancouver’s CJOR 600. One of the city’s most entertaining radio personalities, Monty was a member of the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame’s Starwalk.
Monty liked jazz music, big band and frowned on the “new music” of the 50’s 60’s and 70’s and somehow he survived in the radio entertainment business on the humour he generated. It was his dry wit, interplay with other radio personnel and tiny bits of old radio shows played at just the right second that made the Monty in the Morning show. He was an expert with the tight clip from a big LP. “You never loved me!” – A hysterical women shrieks and Monty would try to calm her down. McFarlane said it was a giggle and titter type of show. “I would try to keep people entertained.” He did it with no live audience to feed him energy.
Monty was a busy man putting together a CFUN basketball team that won a National championship in 1956, he appear in four TV segments on CBC called Summer Begins and he appeared for several years as a character (Sam Lockhart) in the Vancouver TV production - The Littlest Hobo (1963-1965). He loved golf and played just about every day for four decades…..if it wasn’t raining.
Confined to a wheelchair with a neurological problem, Monty was quite ill for a number of years prior to his death but his humour remained. Some firefighters were whisking him away to hospital and he quipped: “You know guys; this is the third time you have taken me out of here. The fourth time you get to punch the card for a free coffee.”
Monty took his last ride on December 15, 2003. He was 78.
Radio and TV stations that he worked for over the course of his 46 year career: CBW, CKY, CKPR, CJVI, CKMO, CKNW, CFUN, CKLG, CJOR, KGU, CISL, CJVB, CIMA, CBC-TV, CHAN-TV

written by Jack Bennest
http://www.bcradiohistory.com/

Valdy

Valdy, born Valdemar Horsdal in Ottawa, Canada has been part of the fabric of Canadian pop and folk music for over 34 years. A man with a thousand friends, from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island to Texas to New Zealand, he's a singer, guitarist and songwriter who catches the small but telling moments that make up life.
Remembered for Play Me a Rock and Roll Song, his bitter-sweet memory of finding himself, a relaxed and amiable story-teller, facing a rambunctious audience at the Aldergrove Rock Festival circa 1968, Valdy has sold almost half a million copies of his 13 albums, has two Juno Awards (Folk Singer of the Year and Folk Entertainer of the Year), a total of seven Juno nominations and four Gold albums to his credit.
Valdy's recent CDs include "Contenders", a collaboration with friend and fellow singer/songwriter, Gary Fjellgaard, with whom he has an absolute blast touring, and a solo release, "Viva Valdy: Live at Last", a two-CD package, one live, one studio, with a total of 25 tunes, and a lyric booklet.
One of Canada's most influential songwriters, Valdy's composition A Good Song was recorded under the title Just a Man by the venerable Quincy Jones ( he sang lead on the recording!). Play Me a Rock and Roll Song has been recorded by a few artists, including John Kay of Steppenwolf.
Along the way, Valdy has taken his music to a dozen different countries, from Denmark to Australia and been an often-invited performer at the prestigious Kerrville Festival in Texas. His recent television appearances include Canada AM and Open Mike with Mike Bullard. Valdy has also been a panelist on Front Page Challenge, and played a lead role in an episode of The Beachcombers original series.
Today, he is based on Salt Spring Island, where he lives with his wife Kathleen, two dogs and two large cats. All three children are now grown, flown and doing famously living in or near Vancouver.
Visit Valdy on the web at "http://www.valdy.com".

Collins, Ray

Ray Bidwell Collins (December 10, 1889 – July 11, 1965) was an American actor in film, stage, radio, and television, but may be best remembered as Lt. Arthur Tragg in the long-running series Perry Mason.
Collins was born in Sacramento, California to Lillie Bidwell and William C. Collins, a newspaper drama editor.[1] He was a decendant of California pioneers.

He started acting on stage at the age of 14, and moved to British Columbia where he headed up his own theatrical stock company until moving on to Broadway.

In the mid-1930s, now an established stage and radio actor, Collins began working with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre leading to some of his most memorable roles. Having already appeared on radio with Welles on The Shadow (a regular as Commissioner Weston) and in Welles' serial adaptation of Les Miserables from 1937, Collins became a regular on The Mercury Theatre on the Air; through the run of the series, he played many roles in literary adaptations, from Squire Livesey from Treasure Island and Dr. Watson to Mr. Pickwick in an adaptation of Pickwick Papers. Collins' best known (albeit uncredited) work on this series, however, was in the infamous The War of the Worlds broadcast, playing three roles, including Mr. Wilmuth (on whose farm the Martian craft lands) and the newscaster who describes the destruction of New York.
Along with other Mercury Theatre players, Collins made his first notable screen appearance in Citizen Kane, as ruthless Boss Jim Gettys. He would also play key roles in Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons and Touch of Evil. Collins appeared in over 90 films in all, including Leave Her to Heaven (1945), The Best Years of Our Lives and Crack-Up (1946) A Double Life (1947), two entries in the Ma and Pa Kettle series (as in-law Benjamin Parker), and the 1953 version of The Desert Song, in which he played the non-singing role of Kathryn Grayson's father. He displayed a remarkable comic ability in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), and The Man from Colorado (1948).
He may be best remembered for his work on television, playing Lt. Tragg on Perry Mason in the 1950s and 1960s. He was also a regular as John Merriweather on the television version of The Halls of Ivy starring Ronald Colman.
On July 11, 1965, Collins died of emphysema at the age of 75.

McCormick, Dave

‘Big Daddy’ Dave McCormick
Born on June 6, 1936

He's among the most venerable personalities on Vancouver airwaves today, a Disc Jockey's ‘DJ’ whose love affair with radio goes back to the last days of big band and the dawn of rock 'n' roll.

McCormick has been in the game since he was a teenage radio operator working after school and weekends at CHML in Hamilton.

"That was a trip, running a station for eight hours, a 15-year- old kid. This is before rock 'n' roll came along. I was into country roots and the blues stuff, what became rock 'n' roll. The Crows, Hank Sr., I was a Bob Willis freak -- I was a stone country fan in the early '50s."

McCormick lost the job when his father was transferred to the coast though he never lost his enthusiasm for radio. After high school and a stint at University of B.C., including working on the campus station, he became part of local radio history at CFUN.

"They weren't very old; they weren't a rocker yet. The station was all over the place in those days. I turned it around and started rocking a little bit there and got some ratings and in the summer of 1960 a whole bunch of us turned that station into a rock 'n' roll station. Brian Lord, Brian Forst, Al Jordan and myself. We were the Good Guys at 1410. We were a really fun radio station, you ask anybody who remembers. I had 100,000 members in a thing called the Hi-Fi Club.

That led to a 10-year radio stint in Fresno, interrupted with a year in Seattle, before McCormick was lured back to Canada and sister stations CKNW/CFMI, where McCormick helped develop his ‘Discumentary’ idea.

These were hour-long shows focusing on particular artists or themes using music, research material and bits of interviews.

"We borrowed stuff, we traded stuff. When you think back, a lot of them didn't have interview clips in them. You just don't get Eric Clapton. In the beginning we did everybody, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, Marvin Gaye, whatever. I was quite flattered – the format was stolen left and right all over the place. We did hundreds of those shows."

After 14 years at CKNW/CFMI there was a general firing -- not unusual in radio -- that included McCormick. He followed that with 21 more years at JR Country and CKBD in Vancouver.

Credit the province 1993 John P. McLaughlin - edited

***

CHML Hamilton ON 1954-56; UBC Radio Society 1956-57; DJ, music director & co-program director CFUN Vancouver 1958-62; middays/music director with legends Ron Jacobs and Robert W. Morgan, KMAK Fresno CA 1962-65; drive/MD original Boss Radio KYNO Fresno 1965-66; middays/PD KOL Seattle 1966-67; evenings/PD/MD KMEN San Bernardino CA 1967-72; CKNW evenings & CFMI-FM Vancouver; created and hosted 1,000 award winning and world-wide syndicated documentary series ‘Discumentary’ 1972-86; first hire CJJR-FM Vancouver/PM drive 1986-96; CKBD Vancouver midday host 1996-current; BC Broadcaster of the year award early nineties; four times BC Country Music Association Country Broadcaster of the Year; 1998 inductee BC Country Music Association Hall of Fame; Inductee BC Entertainment Hall of Fame.

Biography assembled by Jack Bennest

http://www.bcradiohistory.com

Waters, Vic

Vic Waters - Born September 9, 1918
Died Aug. 19, 2008

“I started in radio in 1938. I was taking a wireless-telegraphy course at Sprott-Shaw School on Robson Street and was asked by an instructor as to whether I could copy Morse code at 35 words per minute and I said yes. I was needed.

My first duty was to go to the transmitter site of CJOR at Sea Island and listen to the Trans-Radio Press circuit and type the copy. The idea was that CJOR wanted to be first with unchallenged accuracy in its reporting of what was going on in the world. The copy was couriered by motorcycle to the Howe Street studios for Dick Diespecker’s 8 o’clock morning news broadcast. Prior to this time, CJOR would get its news from a station CKCD owned by The Vancouver Daily Province. One of the important chores linked to my job was that I first turned the transmitter on at 5:45 am under instruction from Engineer Bud Seabrooke.

I only worked at one station, which is uncommon in the broadcast field. I came through the front door meeting the likes of Dorwin Baird, Diespecker and Ross Mortimer - all were announcers and involved in current affairs.”

He worked with Bernie Braden, Andrew Allen, Charles Hovey, Dal Richards, and Al Jordan. Hector McKay was a named with fondness, well known in the copy writing world. Waters talked a lot about those first two years of 1938-1939 as if they were yesterday telling the story of Laddy Whatkis, the bookkeeper who used that name and others on CJOR including Margaret May, the pianist and Mrs. Fennell.

After WW2 broke out Waters enlisted and served 4 years. He returned to what he knew best. Waters was asked about the Chandler Family – owners of the station and he responded that Art Chandler was the chief engineer and George ran the business side until his death and then his wife, Marie took that role. He said the Chandlers were gentile. He talked fondly about Cardo Smalley and his violin program and the talented blind pianist Ronnie Mathews. He said in those days no recorded music was allowed to be played between 7:30 and 11pm – so the station had entertaining programs through the evening.

Waters says the station built the CJOR Radio Theatre across the street from the Grosvenor Hotel that could handle a 16-piece orchestra and many broadcasts were made from that location including ones transmitted over the Dominion Network of the CBC.

“I held most positions within the production side of radio, studio operator, news editor, engineer, program director, talk show host, and announcer.

Quietly he has a lot of respect for Red Robinson. He hired him first.

I remember once being the operator to Pat Burns who was doing a telephone talk show. This lady caller asked Burns if he had been born on a farm. He said no. She asked was Vic Waters born on a farm. The answer was no again and Burns asked why this particular question. She responded that she had never heard so much bull manure (or words to that effect) in her entire life.” So a delay system had to be invented. It was the birth of modern talk radio.

In 1969 Waters retired. Ownership had changed. His day of doing everything for that one station was over. He had been the glue for nearly thirty years. Vic was a great deal happier when he arrived home to see Thelma.

above written by Jack Bennest

http://www.bcradiohistory.com

***

They say "fame is fleeting" and so it is. Some of the giants of radio from bygone days are fading into the mist and this is not right.

One of those who pioneered the art of deejay communication was Vic Waters. He went from wireless operator, to copywriter, to engineer, network announcer, program director and of course deejay.

Vic spent more than 30 years with Vancouver's first real "talk radio" station CJOR starting in 1938. On his evening spot, when radio was king, he brought to his show stars such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Patti Page, The Ink Spots, The Mills Brothers and big band leaders such as Tex Beneke, Woody Herman and Cab Calloway. Vic also introduced radio audiences to newcomers who went on to broadcast fame including Jack Webster, who had been city editor of the Vancouver Sun, Fred Latremouille, Al Jordan and Pat Burns plus a young red-headed rock and roller, yours truly.

When Vic retired he returned the following year by joining the fledgling new Vancouver Cablevision with a mandate to introduce community programming. He was pioneering once again and this time with the world's first cable operation right here in our town.

Vic also served his country in the armed forces in the South Pacific from 1942-1946.

This man could take a word such as "Sky" and turn it into one of the most interesting stories with twists and turns that only a fertile imagination could invent.

He was truly one of the greatest communicators the radio business had ever produced.

above written by Red Robinson - edited

Special to The Vancouver Sun

August 21, 2006

http://www.redrobinson.com

***

Former corporal Vic Waters tells of his WW11 career.

Waters, who joined CJOR radio in 1938, says he was one of the charter members of the Royal Canadian Signal Corps. "We started in a little, shabby bungalow in the outskirts of Esquimalt and we set up the first Pacific Coast listening station.

"Our job was to track down enemy subversive operators, operating out of the Hudson River basin in New York and places like Seattle and Portland.''

Vic and other highly trained wireless intercept operators were posted to Darwin in 1945 with a companion group of Canadian Intelligence Service operatives in the last few months of the Second World War.

"The receiving station we built at the very aptly named Cemetery Plains in northern Australia was probably one of the best in the world, akin to Bletchley Park in England. Most people didn't know there was any Canadian corps in the South Pacific because the work was hush-hush,'' says Vic.

A tribute by Red Robinson can be found on his blog at: http://redrobinson.com/blog/?p=79

Robinson, Red

(The First Decade)

If you want to write the best biography of Red Robinson you would have a lot of competition. This rock/radio icon has co-authored books, pops up on many web sites, and appears in many ‘halls of fame’ and in newspaper or magazine articles. More than 50 years in radio-TV and now as an elder statesman makes it difficult to capture the essence of what makes “Red” tick.

Robert Gordon Robinson was born in Comox, BC on March 30, 1937. He received much of his education at King Edward High School at West 12th at Oak in Vancouver. He phoned into CJOR’s “Theme for Teens” show with imitations of Jimmy Stewart and Peter Lorre. He began hanging around ‘OR downstairs in the Grosvenor Hotel at the age of 15. That was 1953 and Al Jordan was a young broadcaster not much older than Robinson. Jordan allowed Red to write scripts for the show. He called the gangly teenager a “natural”.

Rock and Roll had not really arrived yet with teenagers dancing at sock hops to rhythm and blues. But that was going to change with the “new music” - black-based rhythms call rock-a-billy.

Vic Waters, CJOR Program Director at the time said Red Robinson was a radio groupie and got his start like a lot of other young broadcasters by hanging around the station on Howe Street. Al Jordan moved on in the summer of ’54 heading to the sunshine of Penticton to work for a new station CKOK owned by Maurice P. Finnerty. Jordan’s replacement at ‘OR was Rod Hume who didn’t last long to the luck of Robinson. Red had just returned from a visit to his pal in the Peach city when Hume failed to show for a shift right after Armistice Day. Waters said: “Well Red, here is your chance. Show me.”

Red did well and was offered a job at $35/week. Regular announcers were getting about $65 a week so it was quite a deal for the station. CJOR owner George Chandler who was used to a bit of formality (suits and ties) referred to Robinson as that redheaded kid in the singlet - a T-shirt exposing the arm. Red’s success grew until everyone at the station and the competition was noticing him as well. Soon Red spinning his new rock-a-billy music was on the air 6 hours a day and raking in the ratings – up to 52% of the market when he was on the “mike”. For 3 years – three times a day: 3:30 pm to 6:00 and 9:00 pm to 9:30 and 10:00pm to 1:00 am Robinson could be heard. When Chandler was asked to give Red Robinson a raise…he said

“Let him go”.

Red left for 50,000 watt CKWX when manager, Frank “Tiny” Elphicke, hired him for a fat raise. Elphicke took 'WX and made it into a 24 hour a day Top 50 station. Red then bought his first car, a ($3100) convertible, blazing red with a mobile radio to do broadcasts. It was a Ford Fairlane. In 1959 Robinson was lured by a $22,000 offer and went to Portland to get into KGW Radio/TV but because of the times and the law had to go into the US army at Fort Ord for six months. He was across the border for two years.

He returned in 1961 to CKWX but Elphicke had died and the jocks were sounding like 50 year olds even though they might have been 40. It didn’t work so he moved to C-FUN as program director. He stayed for six years with many of the original C-FUN good guys: Brian Forst, Al Jordan, Dave McCormick, Tom Peacock, Fred Latremouille, Ken Chang, Brian Lord and others. During the period ‘64 to ‘66 CFUN started to get stiff competition from CKLG. That was also when Red launched his family marrying Carole in 1963.

All that in a decade!

Written by Jack Bennest

http://www.bcradiohistory.com

For a more in depth look at Red -

http://www.broadcasting-history.ca/personalities/personalities.php?id=94

Forst, Brian "Frosty"

Born September 6, 1938
Brian Forst was raised in Vancouver’s Kerrisdale area near the boulevard, Forst graduated from Magee High School in 1955. Brian is part of a well known, respected and connected family. The Forst business was furniture/appliances and the company had several locations around the lower mainland. Forst Stores had sponsored the noon news on the hill-billy station in New Westminster for many years.

Brian says:

"Forst's Furniture" (try saying Forst's on sixth street. which is where their New West store was) sponsored the noon news...father brought the commercial copy home to look at, a friend and I saw this copy paper from NW and were impressed...we'd take it, sit on the floor in front of the radio with our Seabreeze tape recorder and read these commercials between songs on the radio...like DJs...then started ripping commercial copy out of the paper as well to add to our "client base". Dad suggested I might like to go into NW or talk with Hal Davis, PD, about radio...and I got him to agree to let me come in weekends for $35. After a while he "corused" me and had no more money...I asked if I could continue to come in anyway and he agreed. He also got John Ansell to take me into UBCs radsoc 10 session radio course that was older university types once a week in the basement of the Georgia Hotel...upon graduating that John talked with Tiny Elphicke, his boss and CKWX GM, into talking with his brother Cecil who ran CKPG in Prince George…. who had an opening for me there. John had given them a good review."

After school he pursued his passion to be in radio by seeking training in a course in broadcasting run by John Ansell of CKWX. Through contacts at the school he was instructed to contact CKPG in north central BC.
He arrived in Prince George in 1956 and spent some time training but was chosen as Teen Jock at Vancouver's CJOR a year later. Bruno Cimolai was his co-host. Red Robinson had a lot to do with Brian coming to CJOR to replace him.

Forst came back to AM 600 to do news in 1958 but was forced to leave again and he was so disappointed he looked elsewhere for work. That super shy kid took a breather working in a warehouse full of ladies undergarments.
That frustration led him into the arms of a new North Vancouver station - CKLG in 1959 - which was playing to the older MOR crowd.
The first day of the rest of his life was in 1960 when Brian became “Frosty” and was hired by CFUN. There he combined with Al Jordon, Dave McCormick, Ken Chang and Brian Lord to become the good guys and go 24 hours a day with the music of the young people bringing the local radio market into the modern world.
Three years later, a lot of staff had moved on. Brian still listened to his dad who said ‘go to NW - you will not regret it’. He was hired by program director Hal Davis in 1963. The rest is history. A million dollar salary contract, top ratings, and 31 years in the chair as morning man at the legend, the top dog - CKNW.

He was the top morning jock in Canada. No one has touched him for ratings.

Radio was in his blood for fifty years. He retired on May 5, 2005.

Brian Forst is Hall of Famer Judith Forst's brother-in-law.

Thanks to Jack Bennest and his great BC Radio History site! Follow this link to a more in-depth bio with quotes. http://www.bcradiohistory.com/Biographies/Forst.htm

Hibbard, Jim

Jim is a dancer and performer whose credits include classic films like Hello Dolly with Barbara Streisand, Gypsy, Bye Bye Birdie, and Thoroughly Modern Millie and Vegas shows with Anne Margaret and Donald O'Connor. Jim was the choreographer of the Paul Anka and the Tom Jones TV series, and many others TV shows including specials with Dean Martin and Jack Benny. His repertoire includes the original rock opera Tommy, West Side Story, Anything Goes and the Pyjama Game.

Recently, Jim was seen performing to rave reviews in the Playhouse Production of “Hello Dolly” and won a ‘Jessie’ nomination for his efforts.

Prior to ‘Dolly’ he was seen as ‘Morey the Mouse’ and he choreographed the tap sequences in the T.V. Production of “ The Swinging Nutcracker “ for Shel Piercy Productions. As well as this production he choreographed Jim Henson Productions’ – N.B.C.’ Movie of the Week’ – “A Very Merry Muppet Christmas”.

The West Coast Tap Collective honoured him earlier this year for lifetime achievement in
‘ tap dancing and teaching ‘.

Getz, Leila

Originally from Capetown, South Africa, Leila Getz, immigrated to Canada in 1966 and went on to become one of North America’s most respected music presenters. Founder in 1980 and Executive Director of the Vancouver Recital Society, Getz’s recital series attracts established leading artists and some of the most outstanding musicians of the New Generation. In 1986, she established the annual Summer Vancouver Chamber Music Festival. She has served on several juries, including the Canada Council, the Canadian Music Competitions and the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards. In recognition of her achievements, she has received various honours including the 1986 Canadian Arts Presenters Association Award and the 1989 YWCA “Woman of Distinction” award. She is a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of BC.

Arngrim, Thor

Husband of Norma McMillan, father of Allison Arngrim and Stephan Arngrim.
Born in Saskatchewan,Thor began his theatrical career in school plays and by the time he was 16 had a role in a professional production. He later played on Broadway with Stratford's Tamburlaine and Tyrone Guthrie's Oedipus. In 1951 Thor cofounded the pioneer Totem Theatre in Vancouver. He appeared at the Mountain Playhouse in Montreal with Norma Springford for several seasons and produced a National Film Board film for CBC-TV. Thor had roles in over a
hundred plays as romantic lead, or as both good or bad priests in many of them. In his Hollywood and New York period, as a producer and manager, his clients included Beatrice Lillie and
Liberace. On his return to Vancouver, he produced Don Juan in Hell for Western Gold Theatre, directed by Joy Coghill and starring Douglas Campbell, Mavor Moore and Betty Philips.These are only a very few of the highlights of an outstanding theatre career that has spanned over 60
years across North America.

Seen holding wife Norma's Hall of Fame plaque awarded post-homusly.

Jacks, Terry

Born: March 29, 1944 in Winnipeg, Manitoba

The oldest of five sons, Jacks was pressured by his family to be an architect. However, the allure to music was too strong. His first real professional exposure in music was as singer and guitarist for The Chessmen who had a modicum of success in the Vancouver region with two singles on London Records and two singles on Mercury 1964 thru 1966. Three of these tunes charted in the Top-10 on CFUN.

During one of The Chessmen's many appearances on CBC-TV's Music Hop, Jacks would meet his future wife, Saskatoon native Susan Pesklevits. Susan and Terry started performing together when, quite a while after that meeting, Susan was asked to sing in Hope, B.C. and needed a guitar player to accompany her. She was unable to locate one who was free for that night but she remembered meeting Terry and had heard that his group had broken up. She called Jacks and he agreed to accompany her, after which they began playing several small clubs as a duo.

They would eventually add a guitar player, Craig McCaw, and began trying out group names (Powerline and Winkin' Blinkin' and Nob). With the addition of a tabla player, Satwant Singh, they settled on the name The Poppy Family. Initially, their repertoire was mostly cover tunes and, as Terry Jacks began writing more, they would add these original composition to the stage show.

Two singles slid by unnoticed ("Beyond The Clouds" and "What Can The Matter Be"), but it gave the act the opportunity to travel outside the Vancouver city limits. In 1969 the band would hit gold with "Which Way You Goin' Billy?" which had been recorded on a shoe-string budget. The single would become a No.1 in Canada and No.2 on Billboard in the USA. Eventually worldwide sales would total over 2 1/2 million copies. The song won four Junos in 1969 for 'Best Produced Single' (Terry Jacks), 'Best Produced MOR Album', 'Best Group Performance' and 'Outstanding Sales'.

Terry Jack's dislike for playing live led him to let McCaw and Singh go from the Poppy Family fold in 1970.

Two more hits followed in "That's Where I Went Wrong" and "Where Evil Grows" which saw Jacks under great pressure to put a touring version of the Poppy Family together. While working with Valdy on a studio project in Vancouver, Jacks came across the guitar work of Norman MacPherson who he brought on board to replace not only McCaw as a live guitarist, but to help in the studio on the 'Poppy Seeds' album. MacPherson left the live roster on good terms in the Fall of 1971. Terry Jacks would then call Bob Nelson to replace MacPherson on guitarist. At first, it was Terry Jacks, Susan Jacks, Bob Nelson & Satwant Singh. They played quite a few gigs across Canada and in the United States. But Nelson eventually left the group and the Poppies returned to studio life.

Later, in 1973 Nelson teamed up again with Terry & Susan Jacks. Nelson was asked to recruit Ron Johnson (who played piano on "Where Evil Grows"), bassist Doug Edwards, and The Fifth Dimension drummer Jim Chivers. They rehearsed quite a bit, but only played a few gigs together in that incarnation - notably, Disney World on the 4th of July.

The intensity of the band's stardom and the stress of producing and having to perform live led Terry Jacks to make some new managerial decisions for the act. He decided that groups were becoming passe and it was time for the duo to drop the "Poppy Family" name. His plan had been to revitalize their image -- as solo recording acts -- thereby yielding twice the impact than a single group.

To that end, Susan recorded a self-titled solo album (aka 'I Thought Of You Again') in 1973 which was produced by Terry Jacks on Goldfish Records for Poppy Family Productions Ltd. Singles released from this album were the Juno-nominated track "I Thought Of You Again" (written by Terry Jacks) as well as "I Want You To Love Me". Alas, the career decisions and other aspects of the duo's life together drove them farther apart as a couple and in 1973 Susan decided to leave their marriage and the act.

Terry Jacks had minor hits with "I'm Gonna Capture You" and "Concrete Sea" but it would be several years before he'd have the biggest hit of his career: Jacques Brel's "Seasons In The Sun" in late 1973 which sold 11.5 million copies worldwide and stayed on the charts for 17 weeks in Canada and 15 in the US. The recording won Jacks another 4 Juno Awards.

The song had been a work in progress during Jacks' production for a new Beach Boys album (the band even got bedtracks recorded on a rough version of the song). Jacks had also tried to sell the tune to Larry Evoy as a vehicle for Edward Bear. Evoy was, in turn, trying to get Jacks to record one of his songs - "Last Song". In the end, both artists would record the songs they were trying to dispatch and had monster hits respectively. 'Seasons In The Sun' featured former Poppy Family touring member Bob Nelson on bass and guitar.

Jacks met Jacques Brel in 1973 and Brel suggested Jacks record another song of his, "If You Go Away (Ne Me Quitte Pas)", which Jacks did but, obviously, without the global impact of "Seasons In The Sun".

Jacks continued writing and producing over the years and released albums sporadically. He fronted a new band called The Hood who charted with their only single "'Cause We're In Love" in 1974.

Jacks would produce such diverse Canadian acts as Chilliwack and DOA's 1990 Restless Records album 'Murder' which featured the remake of Jacks' "Where Evil Grows". The band actually convinced Jacks to appear in a cameo for the video of the song.

He released his final studio album in 1987 and then retired citing his lack of desire to go through the grind of touring. He stayed in the public eye by becoming a staunch Environmentalist and has often made headlines as head of Environmental Watch who is dedicated to fighting pollution.

Jacks was married to his second wife Maggi and has a daughter.

Macmillan, Norma

Date of Birth:15 September 1921, Vancouver, BC
Died Mar. 16, 2001
In her later years, Norma Macmillan was the host of a program for seniors on Vancouver's Co-op radio, and the voice of cartoon characters that captivated a generation. They included Gumby and Sweet Polly Purebred, girlfriend to Wally Cox's heroic shoeshine boy in Underdog.
Ms Macmillan got her start as a stage actor. Thor Arngrim was co-founder of Vancouver's first year-round professional theatre company, Totem Theatre. One of his hires was Ms Macmillan, who had studied speech at London's Trinity College. `We weren't attracted to each other in the beginning, but she was a superb actress, and she could type,'' he said, laughing. In the early '50s, the couple moved to Toronto and then New York, where Ms Macmillan worked for CBC Radio and Arngrim made films for the National Film Board.
In New York, Ms Macmillan landed the role of Casper. In the 1960s, they moved to Hollywood, where Ms Macmillan became the voice of the bendable green Gumby in the ground-breaking claymation series Gumby and Pokey.
They raised two children: Alison, an actor who played Nellie on Little House on the Prairie, and Stefan, also a child actor, who now works in Vancouver's film industry. The couple returned to Vancouver, planning to retire. But they were never busier, Arngrim said.
Ms Macmillan did movies, including one with Katharine Hepburn, Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry. Her plays, including A Crowded Affair and Free as a Bird, were produced in Canada and the United States. What did Ms Macmillan think about being best known as the voice of a cartoon ghost? ``She loved Casper,'' Arngrim said. ``Almost on a daily basis, someone . . . would ask her to do it and she'd do it.''

Allen, Bruce

Bruce Allen. Manager, b Vancouver 19 May 1945. A major figure in the Canadian rock music industry, he began his career as a booking agent in Vancouver, establishing Bruce Allen Talent Promotions in 1972 and managing BTO 1973-8 (and again when the band reformed in 1988). Allen's management was an important factor in the success of Prism, Loverboy (co-managed with Lou Blair), and Bryan Adams. He also managed, among others, Liona Boyd, Tom Cochrane and Red Rider, Susan Jacks, Powder Blues, and Strange Advance, and co-managed (with Cliff Jones) The Payola$ and Rock and Hyde.

In 1985 he co-ordinated the recording of 'Tears Are Not Enough'. With Lou Blair and John Ford, he was a founder in 1987 of Penta Records (since defunct), an independent label whose roster at one time included two other Allen clients, the rock singers Raymond May and Paul Laine. Allen later branched out into country music, adding singer Martina McBride to his stable, and Anne Murray in 1995. In addition to musicians, Allen managed several Canadian Olympic and other athletes. On radio, he hosted 'Sound Off with Bruce Allen' and 'Bruce Break.'

Outspoken, abrasive, but widely respected, Allen was cited as manager of the year by Billboard magazine (USA) in 1985 and by The Record (Canada) in 1985 and 1987; he received the Walt Grealis Award at the 1987 Junos for outstanding achievement in the music industry. The Record in 1991 elected him to its Industry Hall of Fame. The lone Canadian to hold a position in Nashville's Country Music Association from 1995 to 2003, he was named the Canadian Country Music Association's manager of the year for 1996, and a recipient of the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal. Allen was the business partner of Sam Feldman; the archival fonds of their company, A & F Music, is held by the NL of C.

Pickett, Hugh

Hugh Pickett, internationally-revered impresario whose connection to the entertainment world spanned the entire 20th century and into the 21st, died peacefully at home in
Vancouver, Canada, on February 13 at the age of 92.

Pickett, holder of the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia, was co-owner with the late Holly Maxwell of Famous Artists, the agency that brought the world of entertainment to Vancouver for more than six decades. He counted among his friends such celebrities as Marlene Dietrich, Jack Benny, Mitzi Gaynor, Rosemary Clooney, Liberace, Ginger Rogers, Katherine Hepburn and Bob Hope, all of whom he booked many times to play Vancouver.

But he was also hip enough and in the business long enough to stage Elvis Presley’s lone Vancouver appearance in 1958, and the concert by the Rolling Stones in 1972 that resulted in a riot.

In the 1970s, he led the movement to save the historic Orpheum, and when he turned 80, the city of Vancouver celebrated by throwing his birthday party in that theatre. In 1992, he was instrumental in establishing the British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame now housed there. Since then more than 170 individuals from BC’s entertainment world have been inducted; their photos are on display in the Orpheum and their marble plaques embedded in the nearby sidewalks.

Born in Vancouver in 1913, he was the only child of a gifted mother and shipping magnate father. As a teenager he discovered his passion for entertainment and entertainers while working weekends as an usher at the Orpheum. During World War II, he was in the Canadian army, working for military brass in Vancouver organizing visiting movie stars’ tours to overseas military bases.

Postwar, New York agent Sol Hurok would become Pickett’s key show biz connection. Through Hurok he met and booked numerous stars and soon he became a regular at Hollywood parties. His favourite movie star was the legendary Marlene Dietrich whom he met through Sir John Gielgud after one of her Las Vegas shows. She found him so engaging that she hired him as her personal business manager, a relationship that lasted for more than 12 years.

A world-class storyteller and name-dropper, few if any individuals in British Columbia have played as large a role in show business as Pickett, from the earliest days of Theatre Under the Stars in the 40s and 50s, through his years as head of Vancouver’s principal booking agency, to his hundreds of lecture-tours at the Orpheum. He is survived by his longtime companion Gordon Boyd.

Holland, Antony

As an actor, director and teacher, Antony Holland has been a mainstay of the Vancouver theatrical scene since he arrived in the late 1950s from his native England, where he had been Vice-Principal of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. In 1965 he founded Studio 58 at Langara College and for 20 years was instrumental in shaping its direction and growth. He has taught acting, voice, and fencing and has been a stage and theatre manager and play director. As an actor in theatre, film and TV, he has played opposite stars like Katherine Hepburn and Bette Davis. His movie and TV shows have included “McCabe and Mrs. Miller,” “Danger Bay”, “Legends of the Fall” and “21 Jump Street.”

Antony has won many awards for his work, the most recent being the Canadian Actors’ Equity Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Union of BC Performers’ Award for Excellence. His performance of King Lear in Vancouver in 2001 was considered a major triumph, and in 2004 his performance of Morrie in “Tuesdays with Morrie” for Western Edge Theatre Company was described as his modern masterpiece. He currently runs his own theatre studio on Gabriola Island, where he brings to life over 20 plays a year.

Antony is a veteran of WWII, having served with the British 8th Army for 4 ½ years in Egypt. He originally trained as a tank radio operator with the 7th Armoured Division, but was later transferred to British Intelligence and was involved in counter-espionage under M.I.5. He has also been a master-baker, a shorthand typist and an auctioneer’s clerk.

Bennett, Doug

Born in Toronto, 1951

Died Oct. 14, 2004
The lead singer and main creative force behind roadhouse mainstays Doug and the Slugs was a prolific songwriter whose background in film and graphic arts has enabled him to stretch out beyond the realm of music to become a multi-dimensional artist.
The Slug's songs have been part of films and televisions shows such as…
Iron Eagles II / Meatballs III / Tough Love / Neon Rider
He has recieved music awards from The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences including:
Song of the year - 80 / Independent Release - 80 / Album Graphics – 80 /Album Graphics - 81 / Song of the year - 85 / Male Vocalist -85 / Album of the Year - 85 / Group of the Year - 85 / Independent Release - 85 / Album Graphics - 87
Doug himself has received…
The Canadian Organization of Campus Activities [COCA]
Hall of Fame award for live performance. 1989
The Pacific Music Industry Association Special award for outstanding contribution to the BC Music Industry 1997
Through an extensive touring schedule throughout North America, Doug and the Slugs have gone from coast to coast, from New York to the North Pole [actually an army base 800 miles south of the pole] and no matter what the size of the audience, Doug brings to the stage his trademark crowd rapport. It is this charismatic live energy and audience interaction that brought him to the attention of the producers of John Gray’s hit musical, Rock and Roll. What began as a five week sold out performance turned into a cross Canada run.
The Grand Theater, London Ontario 1988 /
Bluma Appel Theater, Toronto Ontario 1988
Martha Cohen Theater, Calgary Alberta 1989 /
Vancouver Playhouse, Vancouver BC 1990
This interest in theater brought Doug to co-produce the English Translation of the long running Quebec hit comedy, Brew, that ran in Vancouver in 1993.
As a film maker, Doug has written, directed and produced over 23 music videos including work for:
Doug and the Slugs / Trooper / Headpins / Zappacosta / Images In Vogue
All of which were played extensively on Much Music and MTV.
The seven Country Music videos he produced and directed for…
Suzanne Gitzi / Rhodes and Marshall / Wynona Sue and the Turnpikes
all received maximum air play on CMT [ Country Music Television ]
His work in music video has been honored with the Best Director award from the Chicago Film Festival and CARAS [The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences] As well, he has won the Best Music Video from the Yorkton Film Festival.

MacPherson, Fraser

(John) Fraser MacPherson. Tenor and alto saxophonist, flutist, clarinetist, b Winnipeg 10 Apr 1928, d Vancouver 27 Sep 1993. Raised in Victoria, BC, he played clarinet as a youth under the influence of traditional New Orleans jazz, and then took up alto and tenor saxophone, adopting for the latter a mainstream style in the lineage of Lester Young. Living after 1948 in Vancouver, except for a period 1956-7 when he studied in New York with Vincent James Abato (saxophone) and Henry Zlotnick (flute), MacPherson worked for 20 years in local nightclubs, among them the Palomar (1950-4, in turn with the bands of Chuck Barber, Bob Reid, and Lance Harrison) and the Cave (1961-3 with Chris Gage, 1964-70 leading his own band). Concurrently he was a first-call studio musician (saxophone, flute, and clarinet) and on occasion, beginning in 1958, played saxophone with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
For many years MacPherson pursued his jazz career largely on CBC radio and TV, initially as a member ca 1951 of the Ray Norris Quintet and later as a featured sideman with Gage, Bobby Hales, Ian McDougall, Doug Parker, Dave Robbins, and others on such shows as 'Jazz Workshop.' He was heard on alto saxophone as the leader of a nonet in the so-called West Coast style on 'Jazz Workshop' and 1963-4 with a string orchestra in a CBC series of his own. In 1975 MacPherson formed a trio with Oliver Gannon (guitar) and, initially, Wyatt Ruther (bass). Its first LP, drawn from a CBC broadcast that year at the MacMillan Planetarium, was issued under MacPherson's own West End label and sparked wider interest in his controlled, elegant tenor style, leading to a belated, if modest, career on the international jazz stage.
In 1978, under the aegis of Overture Concerts, he made the first of an unprecedented four tours in the USSR; the others followed in 1981, 1984, and 1986. MacPherson also performed under RCI sponsorship in Europe in 1979. In Canada he made several national club and/or concert tours and performed at most of the major festivals - eg, the FIJM in 1982 and 1984, Jazz City in 1984 and 1986, and regularly at the du Maurier Ltd International Jazz Festival Vancouver. He also appeared on occasion in the USA and in 1986 performed in Australia. Until 1993, he appeared frequently in Vancouver, at Salt Spring Island, and other BC venues. He recorded his album In the Tradition (CCD-4506) in November 1991 with his quintet.
MacPherson remained a favourite on CBC radio jazz shows, among them 'Jazz Radio-Canada' and 'Jazz Beat,' and was host in the summer of 1977 for the former program's series devoted to the history of jazz. He also taught at Douglas College, New Westminster, BC, and at the Vancouver Community College. MacPherson shared a Juno Award in 1983 with Oliver Gannon for best jazz album (I Didn't Know about You) and was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1987. In 1993, at the FIJM, he was awarded the Prix Oscar Peterson for lifetime contribution to jazz. The Pacific Music/Fraser MacPherson Music Scholarship Fund assists young instrumentalists.
Mark Miller has noted that, as the first Canadian to record with the Concord Jazz label, and through his tours of the USSR, MacPherson contributed much to awareness of Canadian jazz musicians outside Canada's borders.
Taken from the Canadian Music Encyclopedia

Richards, Dal

In Western Canada, the great sound of the Big Band era is synonymous with one man - musician and bandleader Dal Richards.
For more than seven decades, the Dal Richards' Orchestra has delighted Canadians with memorable dance music. Just this past New Year's Eve December 31, 2006, Dal celebrated 72 consecutive years bringing in the New Year swinging.
A Vancouver native, Dal Richards established his musical home in Vancouver event before graduating from Magee High School when he formed a band and was entertainment at clubs and dances around Vancouver in the late 1930s. By 1941 he was leading his band at Vancouver's most popular dance venue, the Panorama Roof at the Hotel Vancouver. The Roof and the band became the centre of Vancouver's social scene for more than 25-years and brought as taste of Vancouver night life to Canadians across the country on live CBC broadcasts from the Roof on Saturday nights.
"Ron and I can't begin to convey to you how much we enjoyed your music on our wedding day. Thank you."
- Natalie & Ron
Dal with Bing Crosby and Lorraine McAllister
When the big band music business slowed in the late sixties, Dal returned to school and received a Diploma of Technology in Hospitality Management from BCIT. A fifteen-year career in the hotel business in Vancouver followed - but as big band swing music regained popularity in the 1980s, Dal resurrected his Orchestra, and the band and Dan have never been busier.
Dal's music is an important part of many corporate events and conventions, community concerts and special occasions like weddings and anniversaries, birthday and reunions. Dal’s 14-piece big band is featured daily at the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver, and his Dal Richards' Combo plays regularly at Chantel’s Lounge at the Boulevard Casino in Coquitlam.
Dal has been featured in not one but two national television documentaries. His biography, “Big Band Boom” won a silver medal for documentaries at the 1990 U.S. International Film and Video Festival in Chicago; while a musical special featuring the Dal Richards Orchestra, “What Legends Are Made Of” has been broadcast nationally several times on CTV and Bravo.

Even after more than half a century entertaining Canadians, Dal still runs a full-time business booking and performing with the Dal Richards' Orchestra, and hosts a weekly radio show 'Dal's Place' on 600 AM Radio. Dal is an active volunteer with the Variety Club, the B. C. Entertainment Hall of Fame and Vancouver AM Tourist Services Association.
Dal has received many honours and accolades during his career including honorary doctorates from both the BC Institute of Technology and Open Learning University recognizing his lifelong commitment to learning, which have led to his friends and fans affectionately called him “Dr. Swing”.
Dal is a popular speaker for numerous events and organizations, talking about his experiences in the music business and the important of life-long learning. He still manages to find time to take courses, because, as Dal epitomized, one is never too old to learn something new.
A Vancouver legend, Dal continues to entertain old and young alike at regular engagements and special occasions around town.
Honours
2006
Recognized by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association with his own street art mosaic “The Swing of Things” located on West Georgia Street outside the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver.

2005
Awarded the Freedom of the City by Vancouver City Council
Named the Honorary Doorman of 2005 by the Vancouver Doorman's Association
Inducted into the BC Lions Wall of Fame at BC Place, honouring his work as producer and music director for BC Lions Football Club half-time shows from 1955-1980.

2004
Honoured for his 65th consecutive year of entertaining at the annual PNE Fair with his own PNE Bench that is 'the best seat in the house' for his big band performances at the fair.

2003
Awarded the Order of British Columbia
Received Tourism Vancouver's Lifetime Achievement Award

2002
Received the Queen's Jubilee Award
Awarded an inaugural Spirit of Vancouver Award from the Vancouver Board of Trade

2001
Received an Honourary Doctorate from the Opening Learning Agency

1999
Received an Honourary Doctorate from BC Institute of Technology

1995
Appointed to the Order of Canada

1994
Presented with the City of Vancouver's Civic Merit Award

1993
Received Variety International's Presidential Citation

1992
Inducted into the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame

McAllister, Lorraine

Lorraine McAllister Singer, actor b. April 15, 1922, Saskatoon, Sask.; d. April 27, 1984, Vancouver. Singing star of radio and TV in 1950s, headlining CBC Toronto's Holiday Ranch and Vancouver's Burn's Chuckwagon, Some of Those Days and Meet Lorraine. Headline performer for Theatre Under the Stars. Performed in Johnny Holmes' orchestra with Oscar Peterson as pianist and Maynard Ferguson as lead trumpet player. Wife of bandleader Dal Richards; sang with his orchestra at the Panorama Roof of the Hotel Vancouver (1950-65). "One of the glamorous performers whose warmth and charm make her a favorite."

With Bing Crosby and Dal Richards

Lorraine McAllister seen with the Rhythm Pals -Mike, Marc and Jack, electric guitarist Arnold Nelson and annoucer/producer Ron Robinson.

Lowe, Harvey

Died: March 11, 2009
Harvey Lowe was one of the first Yo-Yo demonstrators for the Cheerio Yo-Yo company of Canada. Harvey at age 13 won the 1932 World Yo-Yo championships hosted by Cheerio in London England beating out the legendary Canadian Joe Young. It has been said that his hands were insured by Cheerio for $150,000. Since that time he has continued to play and demonstrate the yo-yo. He has made multiple television appearances including the 1989 Smothers Brothers special which featured several legendary yo-yo players. He made many appearances in the "Return of the Yo-Yo Traveling Show" in 1990. He has also made an appearance in the movie (documentary) "Who is Albert Woo." In 2000 he was honored as the grand Marshal of the world yo-yo championships.

He was a Chinese Canadian Community Radio Pioneer hosted first Chinese Canadian radio program Call of China CJOR Vancouver 1951-65;

In 2008, local producer/director Jason Karman created a documentary called "State of Yo" featuring Harvey and another Hall of Famer - Red Robinson.

Here's a trailer for the video:




You can watch the whole documentary here: http://www.nsi-canada.ca/state_of_yo.aspx

Honey, Rick

Died in Vancouver February 24, 2001 at age 53
"When I was 12," Rick Honey remembers, "my father who was a policeman, took me to a different business every week to see what my career would be." One of those places in Winnipeg must have been a radio station, because not long after that, he started working as an operator and music librarian at the FM side of CJOB. "FM was brand new at the time. I think there were two sets in the whole city and my mother had one of them." Rick left school after Grade 10, "just sort of wandered out." Two years later he was invited back to the old school to give a talk on radio. Rick moved around in radio and TV, to Kenora, then Port Arthur, and ended up in the Maritimes. In 1969, on a recommedation from Robert Wood of Toronto's CHUM, he got a call from Frank Callaghan at Vancouver's CKLG.

"I looked around Vancouver, and knew we'd be here forever. Three weeks after I started at LG I got a call from CHUM! Would I be interested . . . but I wasn't by then. I went on LG from noon-3, replacing Terry David Mulligan. Other people there? Roy Hennessey, Jim Hault, Daryl B, John Tanner, Tim Burge, J.B. Shayne, Bill Reiter was doing the all-night show. I did a lot of M.C. work, too. I remember I emceed a B.C. Lions event and made them laugh. Hey, that felt good. I was at CKLG from 69-73. We'd listen to NW and I'd think: that's where I want to be. I could talk to people, interview, be me. Well, Hal Davis called me one day. My heart stopped. Frosty had asked me years before if I'd be interested in just being around NW, and Hal's call was part of that. Frosty had recommended me. So we had the unual clandestine meeting; we got together in the Doric Howe Hotel at 10:00 Tuesday morning. I had hair down to my shoulders, but I wore my suit. "

CKNW was shaping a youth movement; talking to Rick and Wayne Cox and people of that age was part of the plan. Morning man Bob Hutton's audience was getting older, and says Rick, "it was getting harder to sell fridges to them. Hal asked, 'If we--CKNW--wanted to do such and such on the air, who should do that?' And I started listing names: Red Robinson, Fred Latremouille, Roy Hennessey, Jim Hault and me. And I said, I'm at the top of that list. Hal called Mel Cooper, the manager, from the hotel room and we arranged to meet the next week at the same time at CKNW. Before the week was up, I called Hal, "I don't want to wait a week. I want to talk to you sooner." Hal was thrilled I'd called, that I was excited about coming to work for NW. 'You come in tomorrow morning at 11' Not 10 minutes after that meeting I got a call from Jack Wasserman. "What's this I hear about you moving to NW?"

"John Fox, the sales manager, met me the next day. He took me around, introduced me to people. Now, I was used to working in a pretty flaky place. But here? No T-shirts, no half-clad babes, the place looked like a hospital." Rick, just watched for a month, with Bob Hutton showing him the ropes. On April 3, 1973, when he started on air (in a suit and tie), his hair properly cut and combed), it took a bit of adjusting.. "I didn't feel totally comfortable. The salesmen said I was screaming on air." The first thing he said on air: "How do you like me so far?"


In April of 1993, Rick Honey celebrated 20 uninterrupted years as afternoon drive-time host on CKNW!

From "Top Dog" book written in 1994
Author Chuck Davis

Broadcast resume:
CJCB Sydney NS 1970s; Winnipeg; CKLG Vancouver 1970-73; CKNW Vancouver Afternoon Drive 1973-97; Star-FM Chilliwack 1997; CKBD morning show 2000-01; BCAB Broadcaster Performer of the Year 2000. AM600 Morning Guy up until his death.

Lillo, Larry

Larry Lillo, theatre director, died in Vancouver, aged 46. He was born September 20, 1946 in Kinuso, a tiny village in Alberta northwest of Edmonton. He attended Royal Roads Military College, Nova Scotia, earned a BA at St. Francis Xavier. He studied at U. of Washington, then in New York City, later received an MA at UBC in directing. Lillo was the co-founder and a director and actor with Tamahnous Theatre from 1971 to 1981, a freelance theatre director, 1981-85, and artistic director of the Grand Theatre in London, Ont. in 1986. In 1988 he became artistic director of the Vancouver Playhouse (1988). Under his leadership, Playhouse subscriptions rose from 5,800 (1988) to nearly 12,000 (1992/93). He won a Jessie (Vancouver) and a Dora (Toronto) for his direction of Sam Shepard’s play A Lie of the Mind, which was at the Playhouse from October 4 to November 5, 1988. Lillo directed and developed many new Canadian plays. His partner, John Moffat (d. May 16, 1995, Vancouver, at 39), was an award-winning actor.

Bachman, Randy

Born in Winnipeg, Canada, Randy Bachman has become a legendary figure in the rock and roll world through his talents as a guitarist, songwriter, performer and producer. He has earned over 120 Gold and Platinum album/singles awards around the world for performing and producing. His songwriting has garnered him the coveted #1 spot on radio play lists in over 20 countries and he has amassed over 40 million records sold. His songs have been recorded by numerous other artists and placed in dozens of television, movie and commercial soundtracks. His music has provided a veritable soundtrack of the last thirty years of popular music.

He first scored Billboard radio chart success with his band The Guess Who in 1965 performing the song Shakin' All Over. After this initial success it would be another few years before the glare of the spotlight would be cast upon these young Canadian boys again. Sticking it out through some misadventures paid off for the band and they worked their way back up to the top of the charts in a spectacular way. This time, The Guess Who went on to virtually own the pop charts with an unprecedented run of 5 million-selling singles, all the product of the gold plated Randy Bachman-Burton Cummings songwriting team. By 1970, The Guess Who had sold more records than the entire Canadian recording industry to that point, even outselling the Beatles that year. Their hits included These Eyes, Laughing, Undun, No Time, No Sugar Tonight and American Woman.

Due to health concerns and desiring a change in lifestyle, which would include spending more time with his young family, Randy left the Guess Who at the height of their success. While this move stunned the music world, Randy knew that he could never leave music behind. He formed Brave Belt - a county rock outfit in 1970 and experimented with a new musical style and line up that eventually metamorphosized into Bachman Turner Overdrive.

Unbelievably, Randy's success with Bachman Turner Overdrive would eclipse his earlier triumphs and give him yet a third run at the pop music charts.

Monstrous hits for the band included, Let it Ride, Roll on Down The Highway, Takin' Care of Business and You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet which reached #1 in over 20 countries.

Randy's career has been built upon his unstoppable drive to work at creating music. He has released numerous solo albums throughout his career, and has simultaneously worked at producing for other artists. His production/writing work with Canadian rock band Trooper generated gold and platinum record in the 1970's.

His love of guitar music and a desire to support some unsung and legendary guitar greats including his early mentor Lenny Breau, led him to found the jazz guitar record label Guitarchives which rescues and releases otherwise lost archival guitar music. As well he founded Ranbach Music, a label which releases archival Guess Who recordings, and other material which never made it to CD.

His songs have been recorded by a diverse selection of artists including Lenny Kravitz' (performing American Woman,) and used for TV and Movie soundtracks including Seinfeld, The Simpsons, American Beauty, and Austin Powers 2. He has been animated on the SIMPSONS and is listed in the Guinness Book of Worlds Records.

Randy Bachman continues to be in much demand as a songwriter, session player and solo artist. Though his music industry awards include dozens of coveted acknowledgments of legendary achievements, when asked which award is his most prized, he responds "The one I haven't got yet."

He has played an integral role in the evolution and growth of the Canadian Music industry and continues to serve as both an inspiration and impetus for others to succeed.

Potts, Barney

Died February 6, 1993, in Vancouver, aged 82. He was born April 25, 1910 in Harrogate, Eng. He led bands in the 1930s in Vancouver nightspots like the Alma Academy, Happyland, Cinderella Ballroom, the Quadra Club, Mandarin Gardens, Odyssey Room and The Narrows. He performed in musicals in the 1940s, and spent 12 years with Theatre Under the Stars. Accompanied by his wife, singer Thora Anders (b. Sept. 12, 1913, Victoria), he played radio and TV (such as a Juliette special with Robert Goulet), nightclubs and concert halls. He was with us for a long time. From Page One of the Ubyssey of November 22, 1932: “Wednesday afternoon the Pep Club under Gordie Hilker and Lyle Stewart will ring the bell once again when they present for the entertainment of the students Barney Potts and his orchestra, undoubtedly the peppiest aggregation of rhythm-dispensers in British Columbia.”
In 1955, he was the MC of "Hotel Downbeat" on CBC Radio with Lance Harrison and Don Franks.
He hosted a CBC television children's show in 1958 called "Barney's Gang".
In 1980, at the age of 70, he released an album titled Barney Potts, Live—Just Barely.

Akiyama, Kazuyoshi

Born into a musical family on January 2, 1941, he studied piano at the Toho Gakuen School of Music, but was fascinated by the conducting activities of a fellow student, Seiji Ozawa. He decided to study conducting with Hideo Saito. In 1974, Akiyama made his debut with the Tokyo Symphony, and within two months, he was named the orchestra’s Music Director and Permanent Conductor.

He has held a number of conducting posts internationally:

• Assistant Conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (1968-1969)
• Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra (1973-1978)
• Music Director (1974-2004) and Conductor Laureate (2004 to date) of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra (1974-2004)
• Music Director (1972-1985) and Conductor Laureate (1985 to date) of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (1972-1985)
• Music Director (1985-1993) and Conductor Emeritus (1993 to date) of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
• Principal Conductor and Music Advisor of the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra (1998 to date)
• Principal Conductor and Music Advisor of the Kyushu Symphony
• Principal Guest Conductor of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (2004-2005)

With the Tokyo Symphony, he conducted the Japanese premieres of Schoenberg's Moses und Aaron, John Adams' El niño and Lachenman's The Little Match Girl.

In 2001, Akiyama was awarded the Emperor’s Purple Ribbon Medal from the Japanese Government for his outstanding contribution to the country’s musical culture.

Taken from Wikipedia

Risk, Sydney

Director and actor Sydney Risk was born in Vancouver in 1908 and died in 1985. He studied at the University of British Columbia, and acted in the Players Club, succeeding Frederic Wood as director in 1930. In 1933 he went to London to study acting at the Old Vic, under the direction of Sir William Tyrone Guthrie, returning to Canada in 1939 to become the University of Alberta Extension Department drama specialist. He obtained an M.A. in theatre at Cornell University in 1943 while on a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship. During World War II he taught at the Banff School of Fine Arts, and in 1946 he moved back to Vancouver to form a professional repertory theatre of Canadian actors, many of them former students from Alberta.

The Everyman Theatre offered young Canadian actors and playwrights a chance to do pursue their careers without having to leave the country, and committed to producing at least one Canadian play a year. It began as a touring company, producing three plays in 1947, including Elsie Park Gowan’s The Last Caveman in seventy locations from Vancouver to Winnipeg.

In 1950 the theatre established itself in a studio theatre space on Main Street in Vancouver. Productions included Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot, and children’s plays under the co-direction of Joy Coghill .

In 1952 it relocated to a larger theatre space, and attempted to draw audiences with imported “star” players. When his production of Jack Kirkland’s adaptation of Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road was stopped by police, Risk resigned and closed his theatre. Until 1966 he taught drama at the University of British Columbia.

Taken from: www.canadiantheatre.com

Moore, Mavor

All-around theatre person to whom most artists in Canada owe a debt. He was born in Toronto, Ontario , March 8, 1919, the son of Francis John and Dora Mavor Moore . He died December 21, 2006.

Mavor Moore produced his first play at 10, began playwriting at 11 and made his acting debut on radio at 14.

He was educated at the University of Toronto and worked for CBC radio as a producer before serving in WWII in London in the psychological warfare section. After returning to Toronto, he helped his mother with the formation of the New Play Society , which encouraged the production of new Canadian plays, and in 1948 began the infamous satirical revue, Spring Thaw, which ran annually until 1971, and became the longest running annual topical revue in the world.

Mavor Moore acted on stages across the country as well as on radio, in television and film.

He was a governor of the first Stratford Festival , founder of the Charlottetown Festival , founding general director of the St. Lawrence Centre , first chairman of the Guild of Canadian Playwrights, first chief producer for CBC television (training and hiring, before the network began; adapting many plays for television including Gratien Gelinas ' Hier, les enfants dansaient (Yesterday The Children were Dancing) and writing many others), a founding governor of the National Theatre School , advisor to the National Arts Centre , Theatre Calgary , Vancouver Playhouse and the Neptune Theatre (among many other houses), served as chairman of the Canada Council during a recession (1979-83). From 1970 to 1984 he was a drama professor at York University in Toronto, and until his death Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria.

He was the author of over 100 plays, and he wrote the libretti for Harry Somers' opera Louis Riel and for Louis Applebaum 's Erehwon (performed at Victoria Opera, March, 2000). His play, A Christmas Carol, The Musical is a Christmas tradition in theatres across the country.

He was named to the Order of Canada in 1973, received a Molson Prize in 1986, and a Governor General's Award in 1999. He has honorary degrees from five universities.

His memoir, Reinventing Myself, was published by Stoddart in 1994. He believed that the first rule of art is to get it done. Who pays for it hardly matters as long as somebody does. The most exciting challenge in life is to break new ground.

Taken from: www.canadiantheatre.com

Juliani, John

Died August, 2003

Actor, director, theatre producer, writer and educator, John Juliani was born in Montreal in 1940. He studied acting at the National Theatre School, and worked for two seasons at the Stratford Festival . In 1966 he was hired by Simon Fraser University to teach theatre, and in the same year he established "Savage God" - a theatre company named after W.B. Yeats' term for a new age of iconoclasm and irreverence in art after witnessing a production of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi in Paris. For Juliani "Savage God" represented imagination in the Blakean sense - "a fierce fondness for contradiction, a penchant for embracing and reconciling opposites." The company has presented plays in many different venues, including the alleyways of Gastown in Vancouver, the gymnasia of Cracow, and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

From 1973-74, Juliani traveled and studied world theatre on a Canada Council grant. In 1974 he established a graduate program in theatre at York University in Toronto, moving to Edmonton in 1976, and producing "Savage God" work in both cities. He returned to Vancouver in 1981, and from 1982 to 1997 he was the executive producer of special projects for CBC Radio Drama. His many productions include Macbeth (1988), adapted for radio by playwright Michael Cook , and with RH Thomson in the lead role. Another of his projects was to produce for radio George Ryga 's The Ecstasy of Rita Joe with Leonard George as Rita Joe's father, a role originally played by Leonard's father, Chief Dan George. August Schellenberg reprised his role as Jamie Paul. Juliani also directed a problematic production of Ryga's Paracelus for the Vancouver Playhouse in 1986, again with August Schellenberg in the lead role.

In January 2000 "Savage God" initiated The Shakespeare Project, with the mandate of performing the entire Shakespeare canon in staged readings by an ensemble of 150 Vancouver actors and musicians, celebrating Shakespeare as the "king of the spoken word." Performances have taken place in Christ Church Cathedral, and St. Paul's Anglican Church in Vancouver.

Juliani has been the president of the Directors Guild of Canada and an active member of the Canadian Actors' Equity Association, serving for several years on its West Coast Advisory Committee. He was also president of the Union of B.C. Performers, the branch of the Alliance of Canadian Television and Radio Artists in the province, and the co-Artistic Director of Opera Breve.

His contribution to theatre and performance in Canada has been far-reaching, including roles in television productions, such as the poet in Ryga's television play, Just an Ordinary Person (1976), in X-files (1996) and Dark Angel (2002). He died in August, 2003 at the age of 63, of liver cancer.

From: www.canadiantheatre.com

Gray, John

Playwright/composer/performer born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1946.

Educated at Mount Allison and the University of British Columbia , Gray was founder of Tamahnous Theatre which went on to produce his most celebrated work, Billy Bishop Goes to War (1978).

He began his career as a writer in 1977 with 18 Wheels, an imaginative work about the lives of truckers which premiered at Theatre Passe Muraille in 1977, directed by the author. Rock and Roll ( National Arts Centre / Vancouver East Cultural Centre , 1981), a tribute to the musical form and the people (some never celebrated) who live in it, followed soon after.

The next of his works to reach national prominence was perhaps most symbolic of Gray's concerns over cultural sovereignty: Don Messer's Jubilee was a celebration of the unassuming little TV show that CBC had broadcast to great success and then cancelled when the network wanted to move with the times (despite the fact the show was still popular).

Mr. Gray has won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award, the Chalmers Award and the Governor General's Award (all for Bishop...) and the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Rock and Roll. Mr. Gray has also written several other fiction and non-fiction works and a series of satirical music videos for CBC's The Journal. He lives in Vancouver with his wife and two sons.

In 1998, he performed in Bishop again, opposite Eric Peterson at Canadian Stage and the National Arts Centre .

Other plays include: Bongo From the Congo (Vancouver Children's Festival, 1982, directed by the author), The Magic Star (Vancouver Heritage Festival, 1983, the author), Better Watch Out, Better Not Die ( Vancouver Playhouse , 1985, Tom Kerr), Health, the Musical (Vancouver Playhouse, 1989, Larry Lillo), Amelia (National Arts Centre, 1994, the author)

George, Chief Dan

George, Chief Dan (Teswahno)

Actor born on Burrard Indian Reserve No. 3, British Columbia , 1899, died in Vancouver, BC, 1981. To most Canadians he is the the first well-known aboriginal artist.

Until he was 60 he had done a series of jobs and was the chief of the Squamish Band of Burrard Inlet, BC. In 1959 he began to act, usually as the wise old Indian on stage and television. His career is particularly marked by three performances: as David Joe in the premiere of George Ryga 's The Ecstasy of Rita Joe (1967), for his recitation of his own Lament for Confederation at the centennial celebrations in Vancouver in 1967, and as the deadpan-humourous elder in the movie Little Big Man (1970, opposite Dustin Hoffman).

Chief George's performances were marked by an almost ethereal wisdom and a timeworn strength of character.

During his acting career, Chief Dan George always worked to promote better understanding by non-aboriginals of the First Nations people. His soliloquy, Lament for Confederation (full text), a riveting indictment of the appropriation of native territory by white colonialism, was performed at the city of Vancouver's celebration of the Canadian centennial in 1967. This speech is credited with escalating native political activism in Canada, as well as touching off widespread pro-native sentiment among non-natives.

In 1971, George was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Cavendish, Nicola

Actor born in Cirencester, Gloucestershire County, England, November 11, 1952, raised in rural British Columbia . She has worked across the country.

Among her credits are performances in the world premiere of Sharon Pollock 's The Komagata Maru Incident , at the Shaw Festival (also in the Festival's The Millionairess, Pygmalion, Cyrano de Bergerac, Present Laughter and Camille), on tour in the one-hander Shirley Valentine, on Broadway in Blithe Spirit (directed by Brian Bedford ), and, in 1999, in Denise Filiatrault 's Canadian Stage production of Michel Tremblay 's Les Belles-soeurs .

Ms Cavendish has a huge range, from the neo-classical ladies to the sturdy mother she played so well in the English-language premiere of Tremblay's Encore une fois, si vous le permettez /For the Pleasure of Seeing her Again at Centaur Theatre (she subsequently toured the nation with the play and won the Montreal English Critics Circle Award for her performance; she will perform the work in Washington DC, at the Arena Stage, in the autumn of 2000).

She lives in North Vancouver.

Her play It's Snowing in Saltspring is an annual Christmas favourite and has played often at the Arts Club Theatre .

Carver, Brent

Magnificent Ontario-based actor/singer, born in Cranbrook, British Columbia, in 1951, who is now best known for creating the role of Molina in the musical version of Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman (for which he won a Tony Award).

Mr. Carver has also acted at the Stratford Festival (Foxfire, Threepenny Opera and, more recently - 2000, Fiddler on the Roof, among others) and he created the male lead role in Carol Bolt 's One Night Stand , which he went on to perform in the movie version. In 1998, he was part of the first season of Toronto's actor-driven repertory company, Soulpepper (appearing as the lead in Don Carlos).

Mr. Carver appeared at Lincoln Centre, New York, in the production Parade (1999) and was subsequently nominated for a Tony Award for his performance. He also appeared in the world premiere of Timothy Findley 's Elizabeth Rex (at Stratford, 2000) and in the musical adaptation of Carol Shields 's Larry's Party (January, 2001, Canadian Stage ; Mr. Carver won the award for best actor from the Capital Critics Circle for this last).

Mr. Carver's performances are marked by an emotional nakedness that is utterly fascinating.

He lives in Niagara-in-the-Lake.

Wood, Frederic

Founder (and leader, until 1929) of the University of British Columbia Players’ Club, the longest running dramatic society in the nation. He was born in Victoria in 1887, and died in 1976.

He graduated from McGill University in 1910, taught high school in Victoria for four years, and earned an M.A. from Harvard University in 1915. Wood joined the faculty of the newly-established University of British Columbia as one of the two original members of the Department of English.

As president of the Players’ Club from its foundation in 1915, he directed all of the plays staged from 1916 to 1931 by students at the University of British Columbia. Twice a year, the club toured one-act plays throughout the province. Wood also guided the careers of several successful theatre artists including Lister Sinclair and Dorothy Somerset (the first head of the UBC theatre department).

Frederic Wood was also involved in the founding of the Vancouver Little Theatre.

In 1953 the first Frederic Wood Theatre opened on the UBC campus in a converted snack-bar. A new theatre was constructed on the campus in 1963, which also bears his name. Annual seasons of plays – including professional productions – have become an important part of the Vancouver theatre scene.

The Frederic Wood archives are located at the University of British Columbia library:

www.library.ubc.ca/archives/u_arch/fwood.html

Ball, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Ball is an independent producer, director, and arts consultant. She was the founder of Carousel Theatre Company and served as Managing Artistic Director for 27 years. Born in Saskatchewan and raised in BC, Elizabeth is Vice President of the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame and a member of the Board of Studio 58 Theatre School at Langara College. She serves on the Executive of the Board of the Minerva Foundation for BC Women.

Elizabeth was previously appointed by the City of Vancouver to the Special Council Committee on the Arts, and was a member of the Public Art Committee that created the first public art policy in Vancouver. She was Chair of the Health and Welfare sub-committee for the Mayor's Task Force on Children, which resulted in the appointment of Vancouver's first Children's Advocate. Elizabeth also served as member of the Vancouver Arts Initiative, a committee appointed by Vancouver City Council. She recently consulted on and wrote the City of Richmond's first arts strategy, a ten-year creative vision and planning policy.

Elizabeth has been nominated as a YWCA Woman of Distinction. She received the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame Award and 'star' on Granville Street. In 2005, the Union of BC Performers awarded her the Sam Payne Award for Humanity, Integrity and the Encouragement of New Talent.

Elizabeth and her husband Douglas have been married for 25 years. The couple have two children and live in the Cambie/Main area.

Bibb, Leon

Born Feb. 7, 1922
Leon Bibb grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, but made his name in the Greenwich Village folk scene in the '50s and '60s. He is a classically trained singer who grew up with all kinds of influences, including spirituals played by his aunt in church.

When Leon put together a folk act, all of those influences came together, and he covered a lot of musical ground. He included field hollers, chain-gang songs, spirituals, and English, Scottish and Irish ballads. One of the places he took his folk act was to Russia. Being politically active at the time, what with one thing and another, he ended up as one of the performers who got blacklisted. But he continued to play college campuses, as they would take folk performers, most of whom were known to be 'left of center'.

Leon didn't stop with music, though. He was trained as an actor and appeared in many Broadway productions, movies and TV shows. He first saw his current home of Vancouver, BC when he was touring as the opening act for Bill Cosby in the 1960s.

The elder Bibb is a well-loved pillar of Vancouver’s theatre community. Leon appeared in three films with Sidney Portier, and since making Vancouver his home in 1969, has starred in numerous plays including 'Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris'.

Kenny, Mart

Born 1910

Died 2006

His music has been heard by over 5 generations of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. His popular CBC series, Mart Kenny's Ranch, in the 1950s, along with his performances in Canadian Pacific hotels across the country, made him a household word. In fact, most people who knew of him find it hard to believe that he's still playing music! Just about every major jazz musician in the country played in his big bands. In 2000 he released his latest CD: Celebration 2000 - Swinging Musical Showcase. Canada's Big Band King!

Kemp, Evan

Died March 17, 2007, in Burnaby, B.C. He was 79.

Evan Kemp, often referred to as “The Golden Voice Of The Golden West”. His death came only days before the March 25th passing of fellow-Canadian country legend, Stu Davis.
Born Evan Herbert Kemp, January 22, 1928 in Vancouver, Mr. Kemp spent the better part of seven decades of his life as an entertainer. In his early childhood years the family had moved to Pangman, Saskatchewan, but for the young Evan Kemp those years turned into painful times. When he was six years-old he was temporarily blinded by rail-yard cinders. During the next year of convalescing Evan listened to a lot of radio programs and became entranced with the yodel songs of Canadian great Wilf Carter. When he was 11 years of age the family returned to Vancouver and Evan began using his own singing and yodeling talents to help sell magazine subscriptions which he was peddling for pocket money.
Evan Kemp’s unique ‘sales pitch’ was the catalyst to his music career. He was ‘discovered’ yodeling on a street corner by Vancouver disc jockey Bill Rea who was first to put the youngster ‘on air’ at CJOR It wasn’t long before Evan Kemp began hosting his own live radio shows during the early 1950’s on CKWX, and at CKMO in Nanaimo. Meanwhile, another mentor, singer /musician Pat Morgan was busy teaching young Evan Kemp how to play guitar as well as being his vocal coach.
During the 1950’s and 60’s Evan Kemp took his talents to the road, heading up his own country band The BC Ranch Boys which soon evolved into the renowned Evan Kemp & The Trail Riders. The band featured some of the top players on the west coast, alumni even included a young Gary Fjellgaard, who would later go on to great fame on the Canadian country music scene including his 2005 induction into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame.
Evan Kemp also put his music to disc, recording several albums for the famed Aragon Records label, as well as later career releases on other labels. He recorded numerous singles, achieving national success with releases like Jessica Waltz, The Beautiful Nicola Valley, On The Golden Shore, Our Old Rockin’ Chair, My Home By The Fraser, Legend Of Turtle Mountain, Cariboo Trail, Don’t Step On The Grass, The Man We Never Knew, and many more He also recorded duets with Alberta Slim (Laughing Horse / Brother You’re Not Dead) and with Shirley Field (We Two). His early-50’s recording of the song Sweet Molly Malone, also received heavy radio airplay on U.S. radio stations and a spot on the Cash Box charts.
Evan Kemp attracted national exposure when he was featured on CTV’s Cross Canada Barn Dance, and as host of his own TV show, The Circle 7 Ranch. He also appeared live on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, and was featured on The Don Ho Show in Hawaii, during a visit there. During his travels he crossed paths with many famed artists, and stars like Eddy Arnold and Loretta Lynn who became close friends and admirers.
In 1989 Evan Kemp suffered a stroke, but after extensive rehab, he recovered nicely and returned to make periodic special guest appearances at various music events in western Canada.
Evan Kemp’s name is enshrined in a star in Vancouver’s Entertainment Walk Of Fame (on Granville Street), and his photo is prominently placed on The Wall Of Fame in The Orpheum Theatre (Vancouver) alongside such other west coast musical notables as Marty Kenny and Dal Richards. Evan Kemp has also been honoured by the BC Country Music Hall of Fame.
Evan Kemp was pre-deceased by his wife of 51 years, Laurie; and is survived by sons Ken and Darcey and daughter Kathryn.

Juliette

Juliette (b Juliette Augustina Sysak). Singer, b St Vital (Winnipeg), of Polish-Ukrainian parents, 26 Aug 1927. She was taken to Vancouver at 10, sang with Dal Richards' Hotel Vancouver orchestra at 13, and made her CBC network debut on George Calangis' 'Sophisticated Strings' at 15. After a year (1943-4) in Toronto on Alan Young's CBC radio show and with Lucio Agostini's orchestra, she sang on many CBC Vancouver radio programs, including 'Burns Chuckwagon' (a country music show with the Rhythm Pals), and 'Here's Juliette'. She also appeared at TUTS. She returned to Toronto in 1954 and co-starred with Gino Silvi on CBC radio's 'Gino and Juliette'. As 'Our Pet, Juliette' she was a regular performer 1954-6 on CBC TV with Billy O'Connor's 'The Late Show'.
Juliette succeeded O'Connor with her own program 'Juliette' (1956-66), one of the CBC's most popular shows of the day. On it, Juliette was joined regularly by a second singer (George Murray in 1956, Roy Roberts 1957-8, and Ken Steele 1958-9) and by Silvi's male vocal quartet the Romeos (1959-60 and 1962) and the female vocal group the Four Mice (1961). The show's music directors were, successively, Bobby Gimby, Bill Isbister, and Lucio Agostini. After several seasons of TV specials, Juliette was host for the CBC TV talk shows 'After Noon' (1969-71) and 'Juliette and Friends' (1973-5).
Juliette recorded two 78s for RCA's 'X' label and one with the Rhythm Pals for Aragon in the early 1950s and later made three LPs for RCA Camden (Juliette CAS 2223, Christmas World CAS 2279, and Country World CAS 2341). She also was heard on a recording of Doris Claman's musical comedy Timber!! Of Juliette's popularity, Antony Ferry wrote: 'Her speciality is being "just folks"... In a pop medium bedecked with tinsel and phoney charm, Juliette retains at least the illusion of old home-body simplicity' (Toronto Daily Star, 7 Oct 1961). She was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1975.

Jarvis, Gerald

Violinist, b Vancouver, 19 Apr 1930, d Chautauqua, New York, 15 Jan 1996; honorary FRAM 1972. Jarvis studied violin in Vancouver 1935-8 with Frederick Geaves and 1938-48 with Douglas Stewart. He first played with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestrain 1947. In 1948 he was awarded a scholarship to study at the RAM with David Martin. He remained in England for several years, playing first with the Philharmonia Orchestra, and 1952-4 with the Royal Opera House Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir John Barbirolli, Clemens Krauss, and others. In 1954 he went to Brussels to study with Arthur Grumiaux, and the same year was concertmaster with Martha Graham's Dance Company Orchestra on its first European tour.
In 1954 Jarvis returned to Canada to play first violin with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, remaining until 1959. In 1960 he returned to England, as co-principal of the London Symphony Orchestra under Pierre Monteux. During this period he became a founding member of the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields. He was concertmaster 1963-8 of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and joint concertmaster 1969-72 of the London Philharmonic under Bernard Haitink.
In 1973 Jarvis once again returned to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra as concertmaster. He held this position for 13 years, working closely with and contributing greatly to the orchestra's success under conductor Kazuyoshi Akiyama. In addition to performing the standard duties of concertmaster, he also appeared frequently as a recitalist and chamber musician. For his vast number of appearances with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Jarvis earned the nickname, 'the face of the VSO.' Rudolf Barshai's decision to dismiss Jarvis in 1986 was one of the more controversial acts of the conductor's brief and troubled term as music director.
In 1986 Jarvis replaced an ailing Steven Staryk as concertmaster for the TS tour of Europe. At Akiyama's invitation, Jarvis became concertmaster in 1987 of the Osaka Philharmonic, of which Akiyama was conductor, and in 1990 took on duties as concertmaster of the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra. In 1990 he began teaching at the Chautauqua Summer Festival in New York, and in 1991 he became a guest professor at the Musashino University of Music in Japan. He returned to Vancouver in May 1990 to perform a concert with Vancouver Symphony Orchestra pianist Linda Lee Thomas. Subsequently he pursued his career in Japan, returning to Chautauqua annually. He gave his last concert in Japan in September 1995, before falling ill with lung cancer. Thomas raised a fund that enabled Jarvis to return to Vancouver and then Chautauqua, where he died. Jarvis was married to the British mezzo-soprano Delia Wallis.

Hyslop, Jeff

British Columbia -based actor/singer/director/choreographer whose career spans over four decades. He is probably best known around the world for his appearances on children's television.
However, Mr. Hyslop has also had a fruitful career in theatre, particularly on the musical stage. He has appeared across the nation in lead roles in works as varied as Anne of Green Gables , Godspell, Pippin, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Pirates of Penzance, Dames at Sea and Stravinsky's L'Histoire du soldat. A particular highlight of this activity was his charismatic and touching performance in the title role of the Canadian touring and Toronto productions of The Phantom of the Opera. He has also performed in London's West End and on Broadway (A Chorus Line, in both places). Mr. Hyslop has toured a one-man-show, Jeff Hyslop Now! (premiered, June, 2000).
Among his directing or choreographing credits are productions of Bless Them All, On Tap, Jacob Two-Two, They're Playing Our Song, The Club, Godspell, Take Two, Modern Housewives, Irma La Douce, Peter Pan and Six Women With Brain Death.
Among non-musical productions in which he has performed are Hamlet and Love's Labour Lost.
Mr. Hyslop has won several awards, notably three of Vancouver's Jessies (best director and best choreographer, twice). His production of On Tap won a 1984 Dora Mavor Moore Award for best new show.

Henderson, Bill

Bill Henderson is best known for his work with CHILLIWACK, one of Canada's top recording acts in the 1970's and 80's. As lead singer, guitarist, producer and songwriter, Bill played a major role in the success of the twelve CHILLIWACK albums released from 1969 to 1985. Songs such as "RAINO", "LONESOME MARY", "CALIFORNIA GIRL", "FLY AT NIGHT", "MY GIRL (GONE GONE GONE)", "I BELIEVE", and "WHATCHA GONNA DO", garnered the band a host of awards and international acclaim.
Although Bill is best known for his work with CHILLIWACK, for the last 10 years or so he has built a reputation as an exciting solo performer at numerous folk festivals and clubs, community theatres, Classic Rock concerts and workshop gatherings of songwriters and performers. As a solo performing artist he relishes the freedom to create entirely new approaches to some of the classic songs from The Collectors, Chilliwack and UHF repertoire, not to mention several from artists that were early influences on his taste in music. These shows are personal, energetic, fresh and engaging.
Born in Vancouver, Bill grew up in Western Canada and began earning a living as a musician while still in high school. He studied music at the University of British Columbia and in 1966 helped found THE COLLECTORS, one of Canada?s most innovative musical groups. After two albums the group evolved into CHILLIWACK.
Bill?s talents as a record producer have been much sought after over the years. Hehas produced recordings for numerous high profile artists and in 1982 won the JUNO AWARD for "PRODUCER OF THE YEAR". He has also been commissioned to music-direct and compose scores and songs for a number of theatre, film, and television productions. In 1990 he won a GENIE AWARD for best original song in a movie ("WHEN I SING" in "BYE BYE BLUES"), and was musical director for SESAME STREET CANADA (Vancouver) from 1989 to 1995.
Bill was a director of the CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF RECORDING ARTS AND SCIENCES for six years and as a champion and defender of musical creator's rights is current Past President of SOCAN, a founding member of the ARTISTS RIGHTS COALITION, and served as President of the SONGWRITERS ASSOCIATION OF CANADA for 5 years.

Harrison, Lance

Lance (Easton) Harrison. Saxophonist, clarinetist, banjoist, singer, entertainer, b Vancouver 23 Jun ca 1920, d Langley BC, 26 Nov 2000. At first a banjoist and guitarist, Harrison switched to saxophone in his teens and played in the Vancouver dance bands of Trevor Page, Sandy DeSantis, and Dal Richards. After service during World War II in RCAF dance and show bands, he was a sideman for over 20 years in Vancouver pit, dance, and hotel orchestras.
In 1950 he also began leading his own dixieland band, which was heard on the CBC, both in variety series - eg, 'Hotel Downbeat' (radio), 'The Twenties Roar' (radio), 'Some of Those Days' (TV, summers 1961-6) - and on jazz programs. It also performed in Vancouver clubs (eg, Pillar and Post), on the Vancouver Island ferries, and, during the 1980s, at Troller's Pub, Horseshoe Bay. Members of the band included the trumpeters Stew Barnett or Don Clark, the trombonist Jack Fulton, the pianist Bud Henderson, and the bassist Stan Johnson. It made several CBC broadcast recordings, including The Lance Harrison Dixieland Band (1965, RCI 263), as well as two commercial LPs, The Vancouver Scene (1965, RCA PCS-1043) and Happy Jazz (1972, Water St 1636).
Harrison was a convincing exponent of the dixieland and swing styles; his tenor saxophone style reflected the particular influence of Eddie Miller. Although Harrison rarely performed outside the Vancouver area, he was featured in the CBC TV special 'A Visit to New Orleans,' filmed during a trip to the birthplace of jazz in 1971, and he appeared with the US cornetist 'Wild Bill' Davison during club engagements made in Toronto and Ottawa in 1983. His band performed occasionally during the 1990s, and Harrison in 1994 joined the ensemble Red Beans and Rice, with Rice Honeywell, with whom he recorded the CD Runnin' Wild in 1996.

Guttman, Irving

Irving (Allen) Guttman. Opera director, b Chatham, Ont, 27 Oct 1928. After studies 1941-6 at Strathcona Academy in Montreal he attended the RCMT 1947-52, where among his teachers were Oskar Morawetz, John Weinzweig and Eileen Weldon Parsons (drama). He was an assistant to Herman Geiger-Torel 1949-54 at the Opera Festival (COC), with an interim period as assistant stage director (1951-2) to Walter Herbert at the New Orleans Opera. He made his directing debut in May of 1953 in Cornwall, Ont, with Menotti's The Consul, for which his cast included the young Maureen Forrester. That same year he directed a complete Faust, the first of some 65 operatic programs for CBC TV over the next six years, including many complete operas for 'L'Heure du concert'. In 1956 he directed The Marriage of Figaro at the Montreal Festivals and in 1958 he made his US debut directing the Santa Fe Opera's world premiere of Carlisle Floyd's Wuthering Heights. After working as a guest director with the New Orleans, Baltimore Civic, Fort Worth, and Houston Grand operas in 1959 and 1960, Guttman became founding artistic director (1960-74) of the Vancouver Opera. For the Opera Guild of Montreal at Her Majesty's Theatre and at PDA he produced seven productions of six operas between 1963 and 1969. His COC debut, La Traviata in 1964, led to seven productions of five operas for that company by 1975. In 1965 Guttman became artistic director of the Edmonton Opera, a position he retained in 1991, when the Irving Guttman Young Artist Fund was established. That company's 1983 production of Lohengrin marked the first time a western Canadian company had presented a major Wagnerian work with surtitles (the English translation of the dialogue and lyrics projected on an overhead screen). He produced Faust for Expo 67 and has been a guest director with the San Francisco Spring and Philadelphia Lyric operas; in Barcelona, Spain (1969, 1971, 1973); and at the Montreal Festivals (La Serva Padrona and L'Heure espagnol, 1961). In 1974 he was appointed head of the opera school at the Courtenay Youth Music Centre. He became artistic director of the Manitoba Opera Association in 1977, although his association with the company dates from its first production in 1973. In 1988 with Bernard Uzan and Guy Bélanger Guttman helped train young singers from the Atelier lyrique de l'Opéra de Montréal. He was named a Member of the Order of Canada in 1988.

Gerussi, Bruno

Barrel-chested actor born in Medicine Hat, Alberta in 1928, died in Vancouver, British Columbia , 1995.
He received a scholarship for the Banff Centre for The Arts in 1947 which launched a career on stage, radio and especially CBC TV where he was star of the series, The Beachcombers for 19 years (from 1971-90).
In 1954 he was invited to join the Stratford Festival , then under Tyrone Guthrie, and stayed until 1965, playing many of the major roles of the Shakespearean canon including Feste in Twelfth Night, Romeo to Julie Harris' Juliet, Ariel in The Tempest and Mark Antony in Julius Caesar. He also appeared in Michael Langham 's celebrated Henry V (1956).
After Beachcombers, he occasionally returned to stage, acting with Arts Club Theatre among other companies.

Gage, Chris

Chris (b Giesinger, Christian) Gage. Pianist, organist, b Regina 12 Dec 1927, d North Vancouver 27 Dec 1964. He began his career at seven as the pianist in a dance band led by his brother Jerry, a tenor saxophonist, travelling with the band in midwestern Canada for some 15 years, save for a period ca 1946 spent working with Paul Perry. He was heard on CKCK radio from Regina, and on the CBC from Winnipeg. Settling in Vancouver in 1949 Gage quickly became that city's leading jazz pianist, for many years accompanied by the bassist Stan Johnson (b Calgary 23 May 1931, d Vancouver 24 May 1999) and the drummer Jim Wightman (b Regina 5 Jul 1930). Reportedly declining offers to tour with Louis Armstrong, Gerry Mulligan, and Peggy Lee, Gage remained in Vancouver until his death. He led the houseband 1961-3 at the nightclub the Cave, starred on 'Blues and a Ballad' (1960), and appeared in such CBC TV series as 'Meet Lorraine' (1958, with Lorraine McAllister) and 'Quintet' and 'Eleanor' (1962 and 1964, both with Eleanor Collins).
Although Gage did not record commercially, he appeared in 1951 on RCI transcriptions 57 and 58 with the guitarist Ray Norris and made CBC RM broadcast recordings (listed in the Canadian Jazz Discography) in the early 1960s with his own group and as a sideman to J.J. Johnson, Fraser MacPherson and Dave Robbins. These LPs, and airchecks from CBC radio's 'Jazz Workshop,' reveal a master jazz pianist whose percussive, rhythmically and harmonically advanced style was well ahead of its time. Gage was considered in his day to have been the only pianist in Canada to rival Oscar Peterson in technical proficiency.Gage is remembered especially for his sensitivity as an accompanist. At the time of his death (by suicide), he was playing piano and organ at the Quadra Club. Don (W.) Thompson, one of his sidemen for the engagement, later wrote For Chris Gage in his honour.

Fyfe, Beverly

Beverly (Couper) Fyfe. Choir conductor, tenor, b Neepawa, near Winnipeg, of Scottish parents, 13 Oct 1909. His father was a choirmaster in Saskatoon and conducted the Arion Male Voice Choir in Victoria. Fyfe attended the Hambourg Conservatory in Toronto on a voice scholarship and also studied in Washington State and California. His voice teachers were Mme Varty Roberts, Clement Q. Williams, and John Goss. After touring in the USA as a conductor of musical comedy Fyfe joined TUTS as a leading tenor in 1941 and became music director in 1945. He was the tenor soloist in the premiere, 3 Mar 1954, of Pentland's The Lake with the CBC Vancouver Chamber Orchestra. In 1961 he became chorusmaster and a music director of the Vancouver Opera. In 1962 in Victoria he directed the Starlight Theatre and conducted Haydn's The Creation. For the 1964 Vancouver International Festival he prepared the choruses in The Damnation of Faust for the visiting conductor Charles Munch and also prepared West Side Story. As the chorusmaster 1965-8 of the Vancouver Bach Choir he prepared the War Requiem and Belshazzar's Feast for Meredith Davies and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. In 1990 Fyfe celebrated 30 years as chorusmaster for the Vancouver Opera Association.During this period he developed a secure technique and a personal philosophy for training an opera chorus. His method involves enabling each chorus member to perform as an individual so that you get the realism in reaction to a situation that opera is looking for today'. Soloists who have emerged from the Vancouver Opera Association chorus include Judith Forst, Lynn Vernon and Richard Margison.

Forst, Judith

Judith (Doris) Forst (b Lumb). Mezzo-soprano, teacher, b New Westminster, near Vancouver, 7 Nov 1943; B MUS (British Columbia) 1966, honorary LLD (British Columbia) 1992, honorary D MUS (Victoria) 1995. She studied piano as a child and voice later with French Tickner of the University of British Columbia, and was coached by Harold Brown. A participant 1966-8 in the Vancouver Opera Association training program, Forst won the 1967 western finals of the San Francisco Opera auditions and the 1968 CBC Talent Festival. A 1968 audition for the Metropolitan Opera led to a contract and her debut there that same year. Forst lived 1968-75 in New York where she continued her studies with Hans Joachim Heinz while performing as a regular member of the Metropolitan Opera, singing mainly minor roles. In 1975 she returned to Vancouver.
Forst sang Hansel in the CBC's 1970 TV production of Hansel and Gretel and made her COC debut in 1972 as Olga in Eugene Onegin. She also sang the Secretary in The Consul (1973) and Polly Peachum in The Beggar's Opera (1976) at the Guelph Spring Festival, and made her San Francisco Opera debut in 1974 as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly. Other assignments with the COC included Maddalena in Rigoletto (1973), Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier (1978), the title roles in Carmen and Rossini's Cinderella (1979), Charlotte in Werther (1980), Preziosilla in La forza del destino (1987), the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos (1988), and Marie in Wozzeck (1990). She sang Jane Seymour in Donizetti's Anna Bolena with Joan Sutherland in the title role for the COC in 1984 and then for the San Francisco Opera and in concerts in Boston, Washington, DC, and in 1986 at Avery Fisher Hall in New York, the last broadcast as part of the 'Live from Lincoln Center' PBS series. Although a mezzo-soprano, Forst also sang traditional soprano roles such as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, which she performed in Calgary, Edmonton, Miami, and Ottawa. In 1985 she made her European debut in Paris in a concert performance of Les Contes d'Hoffmann and in 1988 made her debut in Munich in La Forza del Destino. Forst appeared with the Edmonton, Dallas, Fort Worth, Manitoba, Miami, New York City, New Orleans, Santa Fe, Seattle, Southern Alberta (Calgary), and Vancouver operas and in the operatic productions of Festival Ottawa and Opera Lyra Ottawa. She gave duet recitals with the soprano Riki Turofsky in 1974 in Toronto and at the 1976 CBC Vancouver Festival and sang in oratorio with the Seattle, Toronto, and Vancouver symphony orchestras. In 1988 she sang in the premiere of Rudolf Komorous' opera No No Miya for the Vancouver New Music Society and in 1989 she premiered Malcolm Forsyth's Sun Songs with the Calgary Philharmonic.
For the COC in 1995, and also for the Vancouver, Montreal and Portland Opera companies, she performed the role of Kostelnicka in Janacek's Jenufa. Among her many other COC roles, she created the part of Pamphilea for the 1999 world premiere of The Golden Ass (by Randolph Peters and Robertson Davies), and was Jocasta in Oedipus Rex in 1997. With the Metropolitan Opera in 2001, she took on the role of the Witch in Hansel and Gretel, singing the part again with the Arizona Opera the following year. Also with the Met, as well as for Vancouver Opera and Netherlands Opera, she was Madame de Croissy in Dialogues of the Carmelites. She appeared often for San Francisco Opera, including in the world premieres of Conrad Susa's Dangerous Liaisons (1994) and André Previn's Streetcar Named Desire (1998), creating the roles of Madame de Volanges and Eunice respectively. In 2003 Forst appeared as Klytemnestra in the Vancouver premiere of Elektra, a role which she had sung in concert with the MSO in 2001. She was also a frequent guest instructor at the University of British Columbia.
Forst was called 'one of the few truly world class coloratura mezzo-sopranos on the operatic stage,' with a voice that is 'bright, sensuous, seamless through its range, full of secure, shining high notes' (COC Magazine Apr 1988). She is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a recipient of the Order of British Columbia; in 1978 she was named Canadian Woman of the Year. The City of Port Moody, BC, granted her the freedom of the city in 1992.

Judith Forst is Hall of Famer Brian "Frosty" Forst's sister-in-law.

Firkins, Yvonne

Died January 6, 1966
Called B.C.’s “First Lady of the Theatre,” Firkins died in Vancouver in her 70s. She was born in Worcester, England. During WWI she lived in Birmingham where she was introduced to theatre. She came to Vancouver in 1920. Her husband, magistrate Walter H.C. Firkins, was a police court clerk for 31 years. She was a founding member of Vancouver Little Theatre, Vancouver Ballet School and the Vancouver Dance Festival. She was president of the B.C. Drama Association and founder of the B.C. Dance Festival. She directed shows at Theatre Under the Stars. From 1939 to 1945, during WWII, she was production manager of service shows for Pacific Command, and in 1964 she opened the Arts Club Theatre.

de Ridder, Allard

Allard de Ridder. Conductor, violist, composer, b Dordrecht, Holland, 3 May 1887, d Vancouver 13 May 1966; B MUS (Toronto) 1943, D MUS (Toronto) 1946. He studied violin and conducting in Holland and at the Cologne Cons. His teachers included Johan Wagenaar, Fritz Steinbach, and Willem Mengelberg. He was a guest conductor at Arnhem, The Hague, and Amsterdam and in other European cities. For two seasons he conducted the National Opera in Amsterdam. In 1919 he emigrated to the USA and, after brief seasons with the Boston and Richmond (Va) orchestras, became assistant conductor and violist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Many of his orchestral works received their premieres at this time.
In 1930, on the invitation of Mrs B.T. Rogers, de Ridder conducted a concert by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (re-formed for the occasion). This led to further concerts, four a year until 1933 when he moved to Canada as regular conductor of the orchestra. He retained that position until 1941. Shortly after moving to Vancouver he formed the Allard de Ridder Chamber Music Quartette. In 1934 he organized Stanley Park summer concerts, sponsored by BC Electric, and persuaded W.H. Malkin to finance the construction of the Malkin Bowl. He was a guest lecturer 1936-7 at the University of British Columbia.
Moving in 1941 to Toronto, de Ridder joined the Hart House String Quartet, taught at the TCM, and appeared as guest conductor of the Promenade Symphony Concerts in 1942 and the TSO in 1943. In 1943 he was a guest-conductor of the National SO, Washington. He founded and was the conductor 1944-50 of the Ottawa Philharmonic Orchestra and continued to guest-conduct in Vancouver before returning permanently to that city in 1952. He became conductor of the Holland Choir there and in 1957 appeared with the Vancouver SO in a performance of his Variations on a Swabian Folk Song.
In his later Vancouver years de Ridder taught conducting, viola, and composition. His pupils in Canada included John Avison, Bryan Gooch, Hans Gruber, Klemi Hambourg, Ricky Hyslop, Arnold McLeod, and Doug Randle. De Ridder was revered by his students for his knowledge, his insistence on discipline in performance and writing, and his special insights into the music of Beethoven, Mendelssohn (a direct ancestor of his wife), and Reger.
De Ridder's orchestral compositions include a violin concerto; four symphonic poems (Titania, On the Ocean, Song of Lamia, and In the Woods); a Sketch for flute, violin, and orchestra; an Overture in D; an Intermezzo; a string quartet; a scherzo for unaccompanied choir (Beware of Love); and several songs.

Taken from http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com

Delamont, Arthur

Arthur (William) Delamont. Bandmaster, cornetist,
b Hereford, England, 25 Jan 1892,
d Vancouver 11 Sep 1982.

He played clarinet and later cornet with his father and brothers in a Salvation Army band in Hereford. Arriving in Canada with his family in 1908 he played in a Moose Jaw, Sask, Salvation Army band, and, after 1922, in Vancouver theatre orchestras. In 1928 he formed the Kitsilano Boys' Band, remaining its conductor until his death. Under his influence many of the band's members became professional musicians, including Hall of Famer Dal Richards (not to mention multi-millionare businessman (Jimmy Pattison) and in 1976 he formed the Arthur W. Delamont Concert Band, which included many of these men. The concert band toured in Great Britain in 1979. Delamont also conducted the pep band at the University of British Columbia for more than 40 years. The writer Alan Daniels (Vancouver Sun, 28 Jan 1978) took note of Delamont's 'irreverent approach and impish sense of humour,' adding, however, '[he] is an avowed disciplinarian who commands respect at the rostrum.' Delamont was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1980. Delamont Park in Vancouver is named in his honour.

Taken from http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm

Davies, Dorothy

One of the earliest "truly professional" actors on the Vancouver stage, Dorothy Davies' list of awards is longer than some performers' resumes; her name will also be tied to one of the darker moments in Canadian entertainment history.

(b. July 26, 1920, Salt Lake City UT; d.March. 27, 2002, Victoria, BC)
Dorothy's family moved to Victoria from the United States when she was a very young child. Her father was a Methodist (later United) Minister, and her mother was a piano teacher, trained at Toronto's Royal Conservatory. At the age of 18, Dorothy received a Licentiateship in Speech Arts and Drama from Trinity College of Music, London. Ten years later, she was named a Fellow of that College. Also while in her teens, she became secretary to Maj. William Bullock-Webster, superintendent of schools in British Columbia and an ardent supporter of school drama. In her position, Dorothy was instrumental in the foundation of the BC Drama Association (now Theatre BC).
After receiving acclaim in numerous roles in amateur and professional productions on Vancouver Island, Dorothy moved to Vancouver in 1947 to pursue her professional career. One of her earliest coups was to win the role of "Mary Carson" on The Carson Family, the drama serial which aired as part of CBC Radio's Farms Broadcast each day. She also joined Totem Theatre, founded by Sydney Risk, one of Vancouver's first professional theatre troupes.
Over the years, Dorothy Davies was instrumental in a number of theatrical landmarks in Vancouver. Her production of The Crucible, presented by the UBC Alumni Players, received top honours at the Dominion Drama Festival in Regina in 1955, and Dorothy herself was awarded the Louis Jouvet Challenge Trophy as Best Director.
In 1958 she directed a production of the operetta The Chocolate Soldier for a special presentation for Queen Elizabeth II and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh at Malkin Bowl. In that same year, she toured with the "official" play of the British Columbia Centennial, World of the Wonderful Dark, a play about native Indians, produced at a time when native Indians were considered incapable of playing native Indians.
When the Playhouse Theatre Company opened in the early 1960s, she was a regular cast member, starring in such diverse productions as Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Kopit's Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You In The Closet And I'm Feeling So Sad, Paul St-Pierre's How To Run The Countryand Brian Friel's Philadelphia, Here I Come! Through all this, she continued on The Carsons and its successor, 51st North!, and wrote and appeared in countless radio and TV productions.
Ill health forced her to the wings for a few years in the 1970s, but appearances on The Beachcombersand a comeback at the Playhouse (Tales From The Vienna Woods, You Can't Take It With You) and the Arts Club (Agnes of God) put her back in front of audiences. Her last stage appearance was in The Gin Game in 1986.
Dorothy Davies was the first recipient of the Jessie Richardson Award (lifetime achievement) and of the Sam Payne Award (for outstanding contribution to development of young talent). She received a BC ACTRA award for her portrayal of Emily Carr on CBC Radio (she also wrote the libretto for Jean Coulthard's suite The Pines of Emily Carr in 1969), and in 1995 she was one of the first inductees on "Starwalk", the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame.
Yet for all that, her name will always be connected with an incident which put Vancouver on the entertainment "map" -- for all the wrong reasons. In the early 1950s, Totem Theatre had "morphed" into Everyman Players, working out of the Avon (formerly Pantages) Theatre on Hastings Street, hiring a "major Hollywood star" to headline each production, supported by the locally available talent. In 1953, with Everyman on tough financial times, Risk decided to take a major gamble: the "star attraction" would be the hit Broadway play, Tobacco Road, with an all-local cast. Dorothy was asked to direct the show, and did so despite a threat of arrest for "offending public morality." The production opened to a packed house, although the cast was arrested following the performance. In the trial which followed, all were acquitted, with Dorothy playing a starring role on the witness stand.
In 1988 Dorothy and her husband moved to Victoria, where she produced a CD of nonsense poems called "The Other Day ...", performed by herself, with musical settings by Amanda Lince.

Taken from http://www.canadiantheatre.com/

Cullen, Jack

Cullen, John Francis "Jack" (1922-2002)
Jack Cullen enrolled in the Sprott-Shaw School of Commerce and Radio in Vancouver in 1945 after a tour of duty as a radio operator in the Canadian Navy. He started his lengthy broadcasting career first as a news announcer and then deejay at CJAV in Port Alberni, B.C. in November 1946.
In April 1947 he moved to the engineering department at CKMO Vancouver. Shortly thereafter, he was on the air with an all-night show called "Pacific Patrol". Later that year he took over a program called "DX Prowl" from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., selling his own commercial advertising time. He changed the name of the show to "Owl Prowl" and both he and the program became a huge success with Cullen reportedly making a whopping $1000 a month in 1948. "Owl Prowl" continued on CKMO for two years, with Cullen visiting community centres and doing deejay hops.
Cullen was approached by Bill Rea, owner of CKNW in New Westminster, to move over to that station. He was reluctant at first to move from a 1000-watt Vancouver station to a smaller and newer 250-watter located in the suburbs. However, on August 15, 1949 he made the move taking his "Owl Prowl" program with him. It was aired from 10:05 p.m. to midnight. Initially he also hosted the "1320 Club" (CKNW's frequency at the time) daily at 3:10 p.m.
One of his early radio stunts was taping his first show for CKNW to be run at the same time as he was airing his last live show on CKMO. He constantly took a wire recorder around to local nightclubs to capture acts by artists such as Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland for quasi-legal use on his shows.
In 1954, Cullen moved back to CKMO, which became CFUN in early 1955. In 1957 he returned to CKNW. His "Owl Prowl" show continued with an enormous following on 'NW until May 18, 1999, when the station discontinued it in favour of moving full-time to a news/talk format. Content of his programs, mostly jazz, big band and old-time radio shows was considered mainstream during the early years but became nostalgia in later years. In the late nineties he was named to the British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame in the radio category at the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver. His final radio shows were aired for a few months in 2000 on adult standards station CKST Vancouver.
Cullen purchased his first record, a 78, "Don't Give Up The Ship" by Dick Powell in November 1935. From there his record collection grew to over 300,000, reputedly one of the largest personal music collections in the world. He also operated record stores in Vancouver over the years. He, along with CKNW newsman Jack Webster interviewed the Beatles during their Vancouver concert at Empire Stadium on August 22, 1964.
Cullen totally broke the mold of early formal broadcasting, which had been almost entirely scripted. He ad-libbed virtually everything and performed radio stunts, which were unheard of for the time. He broadcast from his own studios at various locations, sometimes from the roof of the building, from a cab or from the Grouse Mountain chairlift. His programs often contained bangs and crunches, as he would move around to pick a record or answer a phone with the mike on. On several occasions, CKNW station management had to issue apologies for his antics to federal broadcast regulators in Ottawa.
Jack Cullen's final sign-off came at the age of eighty on April 27, 2002 at St. Mary's Hospital in New Westminster, B.C. A celebration of life was held May 2, 2002 with numerous guest speakers, including Senator Ed Lawson, ex B.C. Deputy Premier Grace McCarthy and Canadian Association of Broadcasters Hall of Famer Red Robinson.
Written by Gord Lansdell - May, 2002

Related Links
Audio - Cullen Anniversery Show - 1981

Collins, Eleanor

Eleanor (Elnora Ruth) Collins (b Procter). Singer, actress, b Edmonton 21 Nov 1919. At 15 she won an amateur contest in Edmonton and subsequently sang with Joe Macelli's dance band, with the Three 'E's, and on CFRN radio. She moved in 1938 to Vancouver and performed during the 1940s on CBC radio with a gospel group, the Swing Low Quartet(te), and with Ray Norris' jazz quintet. After a brief retirement 1948-52 she appeared at TUTS in Finian's Rainbow in 1952 and 1954 and Kiss Me Kate in 1953 and made her TV debut in 1954 on CBC Vancouver's 'Bamboula'.
Often compared to Lena Horne, Collins was for many years Vancouver's leading jazz and blues singer, heard on CBC TV's 'The Eleanor Show' (1955), 'Blues and The Ballad' (1960), 'Quintet' (1962), and 'Eleanor' (1964). She also sang on other CBC TV and radio variety shows, in clubs, and in concert, with Chris Gage, Lance Harrison, Doug Parker, and Dave Robbins. Collins recorded with Ray Norris (RCI 57 and 58) in 1951 and appeared on CBC broadcast albums by Gage and Robbins in the 1960s. In later years she performed occasionally in concert and on TV - eg, for Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill in 1975, and at Jazz City in 1980.

Coghill, Joy

Joy Coghill

Actor/director born in Findlater, Saskatchewan in 1926, who has left an indelible mark on Canadian theatre.
She co-founded (with Myra Benson) the first professional children's theatre in the country, Vancouver's Holiday Theatre (1953).
Since, she has played or directed in many of the country's major venues including Vancouver Playhouse , Globe Theatre , Muskoka Summer Theatre, Frederic Wood Theatre (Vancouver), Saidye Bronfman Centre and Grand Theatre, London . Recently, she appeared in Wit, at Canadian Stage (March, 2001).
Her range extends from the modern classics (The Seagull, The Crucible) to the Canadian repertory ( Michael Cook 's Head, Guts and Sound Bone Dance). Her performances are marked by a vivacious and inquisitive spirit.
She has also performed frequently in film, television and on radio.
She lives in Vancouver with her husband (since 1955), Jack Thorn. She runs a company for older actors, there, called Western Gold Company.
(Additional information provided by Christopher Hoile)
Last updated 2006-10-05

Cherniavsky, Jan

Jan Cherniavsky. Pianist, b Uman, Ukraine, 25 Jun 1892, naturalized Canadian 1922, d Vancouver 8 Jan 1989. He was the second of three brothers (Leo, violinist, b 30 Aug 1890, d 1974; Mischel, cellist, b 1893, d Dieppe, France, 21 Feb 1982) who performed together as the Cherniavsky Trio from childhood (1901) until 1934, touring Europe 1901-6, South Africa, Egypt, Australia, and New Zealand in 1908, and North America 1915-17. They disbanded in 1934 after a concert in Salt Lake City. (Leo went to Australia, where he performed and broadcast, and then to South Africa. Mischel moved to London, where he pursued a solo career; he eventually settled in France.) The trio made recordings for Columbia and Edison. Jan, after early studies in the Ukraine, had his most significant tuition from Leschetizky, first when the family moved to Vienna in 1905 and then between 1910 and 1915. At this time he also made some solo acoustic 78s for Pathé Saphir.
Though all three brothers became Canadian citizens in 1922, only Jan actually lived in Canada, but not permanently until 1934, when he settled in Vancouver. (He lived there briefly before 1920, married a Vancouver woman, and did some teaching.) He continued to give concerts throughout North America, and in 1958, with his brothers, briefly revived the trio for a tour of South Africa. In Vancouver he involved himself in the musical life of the city, promoting opera, giving concerts in aid of the Vancouver Endowment Trust Foundation, and contributing to opera and theatre for children. He played an important part with Allard de Ridder in re-establishing the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in 1930, encouraging patrons and helping to inaugurate the orchestra's Sunday concerts. In 1967 he established the Vancouver Junior Club for the Performing Arts (later the Cherniavsky Junior Music Club), a plan that allowed young people to purchase concert and theatre tickets at a reduced rate. Cherniavsky himself subsidized the club initially, but in 1978 Chevron Canada assumed financial responsibility until 1987 when membership grew to an unmanageable 16,000 and the club was discontinued.

Author: Janice Butler

Avison, John

John (Henry Patrick) Avison. Conductor, pianist, b Vancouver 25 Apr 1915, d there 30 Nov 1983; ATCM 1929, BA (British Columbia) 1935, B MUS (Washington) 1936. He studied piano with J.D.A. Tripp in Vancouver and attended the University of British Columbia and the University of Washington. After World War II service he resumed music studies at the Juilliard School in 1946, at Columbia U 1946-7, and with Paul Hindemith at Yale U in 1947. He began performing with orchestras in Vancouver in 1936 and toured western Canada and the USA as accompanist to such performers as Lauritz Melchior, Szymon Goldberg, and Joseph Szigeti. In 1938 he became the first conductor of the CBC Vancouver Chamber Orchestra. Though he continued to conduct that orchestra until his retirement in 1980, he appeared with many others, including the London Philharmonic (1959) and orchestras in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, and Seattle. In 1956 he declined an invitation from William Steinberg to become associate conductor of the Pittsburgh SO. In 1971 as conductor of the Vancouver Radio Orchestra (the touring name of the CBC Vancouver Chamber Orchestra) he directed the first orchestral concerts given in the Canadian Arctic. In 1966 he became the regular conductor for the CBC Talent Festival.
Avison appeared as a solo pianist, as a duo pianist with Norma Abernethy and with Victor Babin, and as an accompanist to such performers as Maureen Forrester, Lois Marshall, and, on an RCI series of folk recordings, Emma Caslor. He composed and arranged music for CBC radio and TV programs, including 'River of the Clouds' and 'The Journey' in 1965, and in 1966 he was host of the six-part CBC TV series 'Man and Music'. He was associate director 1952, 1954, and 1956 of the Aspen, Colo, Music Festival, a part-time lecturer 1967-9 in orchestration at the University of Victoria, and a member 1968-71 of the Canada Council's arts advisory committee. A versatile conductor especially proficient in 18th-century music, Avison also conducted a vast quantity of 20th-century music, including premieres of such Canadian works as Murray Adaskin's Serenade Concertante (1954), Udo Kasemets' Violin Concerto, Opus 41 (1967), Bruce Mather's Music for Vancouver (1969) and Talivaldis Kenins' Violin Concerto (1974). In 1961, jointly with the CBC Vancouver Chamber Orchestra, he received from the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, a commendation for services to contemporary music. In 1970 he was the recipient of the Canada Music Citation of the CLComp, in 1978 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada, and in 1980 he was awarded the Canadian Music Council Medal. The CBC Vancouver Orchestra presented a series of three concerts entitled The Avison Series to mark its 50th anniversary in 1988.
According to Bryan N.S. Gooch, Avison was "a truly sensitive and gifted musician; his knowledge of the repertoire was broad and detailed, and his performances were distinguished not only by an insistence on standards but by his own very real love for - and penetrating understanding of - his material. He was indeed a brilliant pianist (his reading was superbly accomplished); his energy and leadership are much missed."
Avison was married to the violinist Angelina Avison (b Calangis), a longtime member of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

Avison, Angelina

Sister of Conductor George Calangis, Angelina performed with George and her 4 sisters Geneva, Mary, Helen, and Ethel, in vaudeville billed as the Musical Calangis Family in which they played mandolins and banjos of various registers.

Angelina, who had studied violin with Arthur Gramm, Wilfred Rutley, Jean de Rimanoczy, and Gregori Garbovitsky, became a member (1932-3 and 1938- ), and principal second violin (1951-4 and 1966-81), of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. She is the widow of John Avison.

Anders, Thora

Born September 12, 1913 (Victoria, BC)

Ackery. Ivan

This article was taken from Wikipedia
Ivan Ackery (October 30, 1899-October 29, 1989) was a movie theatre manager and entertainment promoter in Vancouver, British Columbia. He was the manager of Vancouver's Orpheum Theatre during its peak period from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Early years
Born and raised in Bristol, England, Ackery moved to Canada in 1914, arriving in Montreal and going from there to Vancouver. After serving in Europe with the Canadian Army during World War I, Ackery returned to Vancouver to further his education before moving in 1920 to Calgary, Alberta, beginning his long career in the entertainment industry as an usher at the Capitol Theatre, then the flagship of Famous Players' Calgary operations, in 1921.
After returning to Vancouver in 1923, Ackery became an usher at that city's Capitol Theatre before his promotion to manager of the Victoria Theatre in south Vancouver in 1927. It was during his tenure there that Ackery began developing the promotional ideas that he would use in cinema management for the next four decades.
Ackery was then promoted to manage the Dominion Theatre in downtown Vancouver in 1930, then was sent to Victoria to manage the Capitol Theatre there in 1932. While at the Victoria Capitol, Ackery introduced and promoted monthly midnight movies on Sundays, during a period when local bylaws prohibited Sunday movies, then persuaded Famous Players to allow him to play a Victoria-filmed feature at the Capitol called Crimson Paradise, which drew packed houses during its run thanks to heavy promotion by Ackery. Saturday afternoon children's matinees also were begun and became popular at the Capitol during Ackery's tenure.
In 1934, Ackery returned to Vancouver when Famous Players promoted him to manage the Strand Theatre (located on the future site of Vancouver Centre in the downtown area), where he promoted live stage shows and popular British films. He was subsequently promoted to become the manager of the Orpheum in the summer of 1935.

The Orpheum Theatre years (1935-1969)
Faced with both the Great Depression and competition from other Famous Players theatres and locally-owned independent cinemas, Ackery set out to present major-release feature films and live shows featuring popular acts of the day at the Orpheum.
Under Ackery, the theatre, the largest movie house in Vancouver at the time, was frequently picked to show movie premieres in Canada, often world or Canadian premieres (such as 1939's Gone with the Wind, 1942's The Forest Rangers [in which one of that movie's stars, Susan Hayward, appeared in person for the world premiere at the Orpheum], and the 1965 James Clavell World War II feature King Rat). Live shows at the Orpheum during the Ackery years featured performing greats like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Ella Fitzgerald, Tommy Dorsey, George Burns, Jack Benny and Chief Dan George.
Ackery would win several promotional awards during his Orpheum years, most notably the Quigley Award (awarded by the Motion Picture Herald trade publication to movie promoters who were judged to have delivered outstanding movie promotion campaigns) in 1947 and 1952.

Retirement and death

Ackery, then aged 69, retired as manager of the Orpheum in 1969 after Famous Players introduced a new clause requiring mandatory retirement for its employees at age 65. Despite retirement, he carried on in public life in Vancouver, most notably spearheading the campaign to save the Orpheum when, in 1973, Famous Players announced plans to have the palatial cinema gutted and turned into a multiplex (a fate which would later befall the nearby Capitol, also FP-owned). Thanks to Ackery's efforts, which included contributions by Vancouver city council and other entities and several benefit concerts (including an engagement by Jack Benny), the city bought the Orpheum on March 19, 1974. The theatre showed its final movie, Return to Macon County, on November 23, 1975, then was renovated over the next year and reopened on April 2, 1977 as the new home of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
Ackery wrote his autobiography on his years with Famous Players and in theatre management and promotion, Fifty Years on Theatre Row, which was published in 1980. He passed away on October 29, 1989, in West Vancouver, British Columbia, one day shy of his 90th birthday.

Sample, Bill

Bill Sample has been a force in the West Coast music scene for many years. He has a degree in Composition (University of Victoria) and studied Jazz Arranging at Berklee College (Boston), on a full scholarship. His recording credits include Ashanti, Simple Plan, Michelle Wright, Jim Brickman, Randy Bachman (Jazz Thing), Eric Bibb, Valdy, Seal, Wakim Chow (Rock Records, Teipai), and Norman Foote. As a producer, he has worked with Eric and Leon Bibb, Jane Mortifee, the “legendary” Sample Stearns Band, Leonard and Sample and others. As Music Director for David Foster for 8 years, he has worked with Brian Adams, Celine Dion, Fee Waybill (The Tubes), Boz Scaggs and Kenny Loggins, to name a few. He has composed original scores for TV and Film, including “The Swinging Nutcracker”, a one hour adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s Ballet, arranged for big band. He was Music Director for the Variety Club Telethon for ten years and is in his 13th season with Telemiracle in Saskatchewan. He co-starred in the TV series “The Jim Byrnes Show”, playing the role of the piano player. Recently he was Music Director and pianist for the highly acclaimed musical review “Cookin’ at the Cookery”, which returns as a touring production through October and November of 2007. As a jazz educator he had a young lady named Diana Krall as a piano student. He was inducted into the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame in 2003.

When Bill plays, people listen.

Adams, Bryan

b. November 5, 1959 in Kingston, Ontario

Bryan Adams is not so much a film composer in the traditional sense, but a pop music singer/songwriter who contributes songs to movies. In 1990 he was made a Member of the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia. In 1998 he was promoted to an Officer of the Order of Canada. This list includes movies in which he has composed music specifically for the soundtrack, or in which just 1 of his songs may have been used.
Official website
Features & TV Movies:
A Night in Heaven (1983)
Teachers (1984)
Pink Cadillac (1989)
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
Problem Child 2 (1991)
Honey I Blew Up the Kid (1992)
The Three Musketeers (1993)
Don Juan DeMarco (1995)
Jack (1996)
The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996)
Hope Floats (1998)
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)
Ella Enchanted (2004)
Racing Stripes (2005)
The Squid and the Whale (2005)
Colour Me Kubrick (2005)
Cashback (2006)
TV Series:La Mandrágora (1997)

Clothier, Robert

b. October 21, 1921 in Prince Rupert, B.C.

d. February 10, 1999 in North Vancouver, British Columbia

A production still of Robert from the hit telivision show the Beachcombers, Robert Clothier was known to television audiences across Canada and around the world for his long-running role as "Relic," the log-pilfering curmudgeon, in the hit CBC series The Beachcombers. But he was also a highly accomplished classical stage actor. When he wasn't acting, Clothier pursued his other passion, sculpture. Born in Prince Rupert, Clothier lived in England for a time before returning to B.C. He served in the Royal Air Force in World War II and was seriously injured in 1945. He went on to study architecture at the University of British Columbia. He then returned to England for theatre and art studies before resettling in Vancouver where he became a well- established figure on many local stages, most notably as a mainstay actor with Theatre Under the Stars. Clothier spent his final days embroiled in a dispute with CBC-TV over what he believed were royalties owed to him for reruns and overseas sales of The Beachcombers. In 1996 he suffered a stroke and was in poor health until his death.

Also see Bruno Gerussi.

Features & TV Movies:

VR indicates Direct-to-Video Release

Finders Keepers (1984)

The Journey of Natty Gann (1985)

North of Pittsburgh (1992)

Sidney Sheldon's A Stranger in the Mirror (TV-1993)

Max (1994)

Frostfire (TV-1994)

The Disappearance of Vonnie (TV-1994)

When the Vows Break (TV-1995)

Shadow of Doubt (TV-1995)

TV Series - Cast:Alice's Place (1959)

Friday Island (1962-1963)

The Beachcombers (1972-1991)

Jake and the Kid (1995)

Da Vinci's Inquest (1998)

Broadbent, Aida

She was cast as a minor dancer in Lon Chaney's 1925 version of the Phantom of the Opera.

Filmography:

Tell It to a Star (1945) (choreographer)
Man from Oklahoma (1945) (choreographer)
Cowboy in Manhattan (1943) (choreographer)
Four Jacks and a Jill (1942) (dance director)
Sunny (1941) (choreographer)
Sis Hopkins (1941) (choreographer)
No, No, Nanette (1940) (choreographer)
Melody and Moonlight (1940) (choreographer)
Irene (1940) (choreographer)

Related Links:
http://www.dcd.ca/exhibitions/vancouver/belatesbarbes.html

Brynes, Jim

An American-born actor long in Canada, Jim Byrnes is best known for playing 'Lifeguard', the communications expert and link to the "organization" on the CBS series "Wiseguy" (1987-1990), and as Joe Dawson, one of the Watchers tracking the immortals on "Highlander" (syndicated, from 1993-98). A handsome man, often bearded, Byrnes lost both his legs when, while helping push a stalled truck on a highway, he was hit from behind by a car. After recuperating, he pursued work as a musician, which also led to the acting career for which he had once trained.
Born and raised in St Louis, he grew up on the city's north side. As a teenager going to music clubs, he and his buddy were often the only white people in the place. "We never had any problems. We were too naïve, too innocent, and had too much respect for the music and the culture - they knew it, they could tell."
Starting piano at age five, by age thirteen Jim was singing and playing blues guitar, and he continues to play on his favorite guitar, a Gibson 1969 Hummingbird. In addition to being a musician, acting always seemed to strike a chord, ever since he did Shakespeare in the Park in St. Louis when he was 15. He studied acting at Boston University and St. Louis University.
In 1981 he formed the blues group, The Jim Byrnes Band, began playing dates throughout Canada, and has become a staple of the Vancouver music scene. The band has released three albums, "Burnin'", "I Turned My Nights Into Days" and "That River." In 1996, he won the Juno award for Best Blues/Gospel Album for "That River".
He broke into the US TV market in 1987 acting in and singing a song he had written for the NBC miniseries "Hands of a Stranger". "Wiseguy", filmed in Vancouver, Canada, premiered later that year. In addition to acting, Jim has also done voices for the animated series "Dragon Warrior" (syndicated, 1990) and "Megaman" (syndicated, 1996), appeared in the short-lived syndicated series "Neon Rider" (1990) and performed blues songs on an episode of the HBO series "The Hitchhiker". He has co-starred in numerous TV movies, beginning with "The Red Spider" (CBS, 1988). He had strong moments playing a war veteran in the award-winning "Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story" (NBC, 1995) and reprised the role of Lifeguard for a "Wiseguy" reunion movie on ABC in 1996. In 1993, he was nominated for a Genie for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his work in "Harmony Cats", and in 1996 won the Leo for Best Actor in a TV Drama for his work in Highlander.
Jim's feature film work has been limited, although he earned good notices as a musician in "Harmony Cats" (1994) and is also recalled as a police lieutenant in "Under the Gun" (1995).
His most recent projects include filming episodes of "The Twilight Zone", "The Dead Zone", and "Just Cause" and doing voice work for both commercials and cartoons. He is also continuing work on an acoustic album, and is very excited about working on a CD with the legendary gospel group The Soul Stirres - the group Sam Cooke started with.

In 2006, Jim was recipent of the Maple Blues Male Vocalist of the Year by the Toronto Blues Society.

Related Links:

http://www.jimbyrnes.org/

http://www.jamestbyrnes.com/

Hilker, Gordon

John) Gordon Hilker. Impresario, producer, b Vancouver 19 Sep 1913; B COM (British Columbia) 1934. Died April 28, 1991
His mother was a music teacher and he studied piano for some 12 years. In 1936 he brought Martha Graham and her dancers to Vancouver, in 1937 he initiated the Greater Artists Series, and in the late 1930s he incorporated Hilker Attractions, which presented leading artists in Vancouver and in the later 1940s throughout western Canada, continuing to operate until 1950. He negotiated with the Vancouver Parks Board for the use of Malkin Bowl for a special paid-admission summer concert in 1938 which established a precedent, paving the way for TUTS. In fact, when TUTS was ready to open in 1940, Hilker's advice was enlisted and he subsequently produced its shows and tours until 1949. In the 1950s he was occupied mainly as an organizer of centennial celebrations, first in Ontario for Kitchener and St Thomas, and 1956-8 in British Columbia for the province. He was publicity director in 1957 and general manager 1958-64 for the Vancouver International Festival, artistic director 1964-7 of the World Festival at Expo 67, and artistic director in 1968 of the Vancouver International Festival. He left Canada to serve 1968-72 as director of the School of Performing Arts in San Diego, and continued to be associated with the school after that. In 1974 he did the artistic planning for Expo 74 in Spokane, Wash. In 1991 Hilker was living in retirement on Indian Arm, near Vancouver.

Related Links:
http://www.jewishindependent.ca/Archives/May03/archives03May09-04.html

Jones, Art *

anagFouement experience in Canada and abroad. He beganFounder CJOR.

* Founding Member - BC Entertainment Hall of Fame

Born 1926

Passed away April 27, 2006

Art Jones, together with fellow photojournalist Ray Munro, left the Vancouver Sun to incorporate artray limited early in 1948 and to produce all of the photographs that are now available through this website. Art and Ray were only in business for a very short time; Art bought Ray Munro out later that year. Ray then went on to become a Flash Magazine columnist, a parachute jumper (he was a pilot), and a hypnotist, amongst other things.

Art Jones was a photojournalist with a variety of international publications in the 1940s, and a film and television producer with Artray Ltd. Film Productions in the 50s. He became the first successful "Second Station" TV license applicant following his appearance before what was then the Board of Broadcast Governors, precursor of the CRTC. As a result in 1960, he became the founding President, Chairman and Managing Director of Vancouver's CHAN-TV — better known today as Canwest-Global's B.C.TV.

During that period, Jones was also Vice-President of the original "Theatre Under The Stars" organization in Stanley Park. Later, during the 60s, he produced and directed films and TV motion pictures in B.C. and many world-wide locations.

Following his establishment and operation of West Vancouver's Panorama and Hollyburn Film Studios - the beginning of what today is B.C.'s "Hollywood North" - Jones spent a decade as an advertising agency partner and senior vice-president, handling marketing, communications, public and government relations for a diverse group of major clients.

The advent of Pay-TV in the 1980s led Jones to another broadcasting initiative which resulted in his group being awarded the first Canadian Pay-TV license in for B.C. and the Yukon Territories - known to viewers as Superchannel.

Jones for many years produced and hosted the TV series, "Art Jones & Company", a weekly feature on SHAW TV, on which he "chatted" with business, entertainment, community and political leaders. He also served as a member of SHAW's Community Advisory Board. During more than 35 years of active involvement in British Columbia's Tourism and Hospitality industries, Art Jones developed and executed many national and international marketing programs for both the City and Province. For over 20 years he was a director and officer of The Greater Vancouver Convention and Visitors Bureau — " Tourism Vancouver" - and was elected its President in 1983. Shortly thereafter he became the Bureau's first full-time President and CEO, a position he held through EXPO 86.

Jones chaired Tourism Task Forces for several Municipal Economic Development Committees to formulate their marketing plans and strategies. In 1996, Tourism Vancouver bestowed upon him its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. He maintained his active interest in the visitor and hospitality industry and participated as a member of The Council of Tourism Vancouver.

Jones served three terms as President of the Variety Club of British Columbia, which raised in excess of $ 100 million to assist B.C.'s children with special needs. During his tenure as President, he also acted as that group's full-time Executive Director on a volunteer basis. After retiring as Chairman of Variety's Board of Governors, he continued as a life member of its Board of Directors. In 1994, Jones was honoured with Variety's highest accolade, the "Heart Award", for his dedication and service to B.C.'s special children. He received further recognition as recipient of a Presidential Citation from the worldwide Variety Clubs International, and in 2001 also received the Club's "Pioneer Award".

Always active in civic and community affairs, in 1998 Art Jones was appointed a Commissioner of the Vancouver Civic Theatres by Vancouver City Council. That board, which he also chaired, oversees the operations of the Orpheum, the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and the Vancouver Playhouse. He was also President of The B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame, an organization that honours British Columbians who have excelled in their chosen fields of theatre and the performing arts here, across Canada and throughout the world.

In other community activity, Jones was Chair and a Director of St. Vincent's Hospital Foundation, which provides funding for that hospital's four sites in Greater Vancouver. In 2002 he was honoured to receive the Commemorative Medal for the Queen's Golden Jubilee for "Distinguished service to his community and Canada." He and his T.V. show received the West Coast Railway Association's "Media Award of the Year" in 2003.

Jones' business interests continued through his public relations and marketing consulting practice, Art Jones & Associates. He was a life member of The Vancouver Club. He also chaired the Board of Directors of his Strata Corporation.

Pioneer West Vancouver residents, Art Jones and his wife Mary celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary in 2004. He is survived by his wife, three married children and four grandchildren.

Photos:

Top: Art Jones visiting the VPL scanning project offices, Vancouver, B.C.

Upper middle right: VPL 81260; Artray Studio, 1950; Art Jones in photographic studio, Vancouver, B.C.

Lower middle left: VPL 84835; Art Jones, 1947; Fire at Vancouver College, Vancouver, B.C.

Bottom right: VPL 80719; Art Jones, 1948; Gag photo inside the Vancouver News Herald Newspaper offices, Vancouver, B.C.

http://www.vpl.ca/branches/LibrarySquare/spe/artray/biography.html

Dowie, Fran

Died December 21, 2006.

Fran spent his life in show business. He has toured the world with his shows and, for eighteen summers, devised, acted and directed productions at the Theatre Royal in Barkerville, the world famous restored ghost town in British Columbia.

For the past 25 years he has included puppets in his productions in one form or another. His giant puppets have appeared throughout North America on T.V. and have been seen at several festivals of the Puppeteers of America. As a teacher and puppet specialist he has conducted workshops and shows for the Department of Continuing Education at the University of British Columbia and at San Luis Obispo and Asilomar Conference Center in California, as well as working puppets for the B.B. Beagle T.V. show in Hollywood.

Fran was one of the first performers to be selected for the B.C. Walk of Fame. His sidewalk star is on Granville St outside the Orpheum Theatre. Incidentally, he appeared at the age of 12 with Frank Dowie, his father, as "Frank and Francis" on the Orpheum stage in a Vaudeville act.

Frank W. Dowie, his grandfather was the originator of the first minstral show to perform at the London Paladium in the early 1900's..

Links:

http://www.barkerville.com/vol4/interview.htm

Complete List of BCEHoF Members

This is a complete list of Hall of Fame members.

As yet, we do not have bios of all members.
We are working on it. If you have any information to contribute, please contact Steven R. Duncan at srduncan@shaw.ca or steve.duncan@vancouver.ca

Ivan Ackery* ~ Showman
Bryan Adams ~ Music
Kazuyoshi Akiyama ~ Music
Bruce Allen ~ Manager
Thora Anders* ~ Music
Kay Armstrong ~ Dance
Thor Arngrim ~ Theatre
Angelina Avison* ~ Music
John Avison* ~ Music’
Randy Bachman ~ Music
Michael Conway Baker ~ Music
Elizabeth Ball ~ Theatre
Gerry & Ron Barre ~ Ticketmaster
Doug Bennett* ~ Music
Leon Bibb ~ Music
Charlene Brandolini ~ Music
Jay Brazeau ~ Theatre
John Brockington ~ Theatre
Aida Broadbent* - Theatre
Shirley Broderick ~ Theatre
Michael Buble - Music
Bill Buckingham* ~ Theatre
Doris Buckingham* ~ Theatre
Drew Burns ~ Showman
Jim Byrnes ~ Music
Gillian Campbell ~ Music
Nicholas Campbell – TV/Film
Jack Card ~ Dance
Brent Carver ~ Theatre
Nicola Cavendish ~ Theatre
Jan Cherniavsky ~ Music
Doris Chilcott* ~ Theatre
Robert Clothier* ~ Theatre
Joy Coghill ~ Theatre
Eleanor Collins ~ Music
Ray Collins* ~ Theatre
Sergiu Comissiona ~ Music
Jane Coop ~ Music
Wayne Cox ~ Radio/TV
Bernard Cuffling ~ Theatre
Jack Cullen* ~ Radio
Dee Daniels ~ Music
Dorothy Davies* ~ Theatre
Jackson Davies ~ Theatre
Arthur Delamont* ~ Music
Allard de Ridder* ~ Music
Rosemary Deveson ~ Dance
Double Exposure (Bob Robertson & Linda Cullen)~ Radio/TV
Fran Dowie* ~ Theatre
Daryl Duke ~ Television Deceased
Lovie Eli ~ Music
John Emerson* ~ Music
Bruce Fairbairn* ~ Music
Sam Feldman ~ Manager
Sal Ferreras ~ Music
Yvonne Firkins* ~ Theatre
Brian ‘Frosty’ Forst ~ Radio
Judith Forst ~ Opera
Lovena B. Fox ~ Music
Bev Fyfe* ~ Music
Vicki Gabereau ~ Radio
Chris Gage* ~ Music
Christopher Gaze ~ Theatre
Chief Dan George* ~ Film
Bruno Gerussi* ~ Theatre
Leila Getz ~ Music
Choo Chiat & Lin Yee Goh Dance
Daphne Goldrick ~ Theatre
Dorothy Goldrick* ~ Theatre
June Goldsmith ~ Impresario
Wendy Gorling – Theatre
Jurgen Gothe - Radio
John Gray ~ Theatre
Norm Grohmann ~ Theatre
Irving Guttman ~ Opera
Bobby Hales ~ Music
Lance Harrison* ~ Music
Tom Harrison - Music
Peter Haworth ~ Theatre
Roma Hearn ~ Music
Bill Henderson ~ Music
Bud Henderson* ~ Music
Carol Henriques ~ Arts Education
Jane Heyman ~ Theatre
Jim Hibbard - Dance
Gordon Hilker* – Impresario
Antony Holland ~ Theatre
Rick Honey ~ Radio
Jeff Hyslop ~ Theatre
Terry Jacks ~ Music
Gerald Jarvis* ~ Music
James Johnston* ~ Theatre
Art Jones ~ Radio/TV/Film deceased
John Juliani* ~ Theatre
Juliette (Cavazi) ~ Music
Philip Keatley ~ Television
Tom Keenlyside ~ Music
Fanny Keifer - TV
Evan Kemp* ~ Music
Mart Kenney* ~ Music
Robbie King* – Music
Dolores Kirkwood ~ Dance
Iby Koerner* ~ Patron
Diana Krall ~ Music
Fred Latremouille ~ Radio
Harold Laxton* ~ Theatre
Jeni LeGon ~ Dance
Bea Leinbach ~ Producer
Larry Lillo* ~ Theatre
Harvey Lowe* ~ Showman
Otto Lowy*~ Radio
David Y.H. Lui ~ Impresario
Lorraine McAllister* ~ Music
Mara McBirney* ~ Dance
Terry McBride – Manager
Gail McCance* ~ Theatre
Peter McCoppin ~ Music
Monty McFarlane ~ Radio deceased
Grace MacDonald* ~ Dance
Sarah McLachlan ~ Music
Norma Mcmillan* ~Theatre/Film
Fraser MacPherson* ~ Music
Judith Marcuse ~ Dance
Holly Maxwell ~ Impressario deceased
Dave McCormick ~ Music
Bill Millerd ~ Theatre
Clyde Mitchell ~ Music
Mavor Moore* ~ Theatre
Jane Mortifee ~ Music
Pat Morgan* ~ Music
Ann Mortifee ~ Music
Terry David Mulligan ~ Radio/TV
Ruth Nichol ~ Theatre
Eric Nicol ~ Theatre
Karl Norman* ~ Music
Gordon Olson ~ Music
Morris Panych ~ Theatre
Doug Parker ~ Music
Jon Kimura Parker - Music
Sam Payne* ~ Theatre
Betty Phillips ~ Theatre
Hugh Pickett* ~ Impresario
Arthur Polson* ~ Music
Barney Potts ~ Theatre
Ian Pratt ~ Theatre
Ernie Prentice ~ Music
Harry Pryce* ~ Music
Raffi (Cavoukian) ~ Music
Dean Regan ~ Theatre
Bob Reid* ~ Music
Bill Reiter - Radio
Winston Rekert ~ Theatre
Al Reusch* ~ Music
Donnelly Rhodes ~ Theatre/Film/TV
The Rhythm Pals (Jack Jensen, Marc Wald, # Mike Ferby)~ Music
Dal Richards ~ Music
Bill Richardson ~ Theatre/Radio
Jessie Richardson* ~ Theatre
Dave Robbins ~ Music
Red Robinson ~ Radio
June Roper* ~ Dance
Louise Rose ~ Music
Gabrielle Rose -Theatre
Dadye Harvey Rutherford ~ Theatre
Sydney Risk – Theatre
Bill Sample ~ Music
Kathryn Shaw ~ Theatre
Robert Silverman - Music
Denis Simpson ~ Theatre
Denzal Sinclaire ~ Music
Bob Smith* ~ Radio
Lois Smith ~ Dance
Dorothy Somerset* ~ Theatre
Suzanne Sysak* ~ Music
Linda Lee Thomas ~ Music
Sibel Thrasher ~ Music
Pat Trudell ~ Music
Shari Ulrich ~ Music
Valdy ~ Music
Zena Wagstaff ~ Music
Vic Waters ~ Radio
Calvin Winter* ~ Music
Frederic Wood* ~ Theatre
Janet Wright ~ Theatre/Film/TV
Anna Wyman ~ Dance
Max Wyman - Dance
E.V. Young* ~ Theatre
Norman Young ~ Founder
George Zukerman – Music

* Deceased