Forward

Forward
Some of my earliest memories involve television. I was about three when my older brother Ernie, who had been napping, came into the living room, still sound asleep and tried to climb into our Marconi television set through the screen. When my Dad asked him, “what the hell are you doing?” Ernie said. “I have to find my Robin Hood suit!” Dad quietly led him back to bed.
Even at three I knew that there was something really powerful and amazing about television, especially the movie we had been watching, ’The Adventures of Robin Hood’ with Errol Flynn.
I was, simply put, star struck. Reinforcing my awe were the visits to the Canadian National Exhibition where at the grandstand matinee shows, I could actually see the characters that were the mainstay of my early television and movie viewing: Roy Rogers and Dale Evans with Trigger and Buttermik; The Cisco Kid and his sidekick Poncho, Hopalong Cassidy, Lassie and even the Three Stooges.
On Saturday, I would go to a matinee show at the Mayfair Theatre on Jane Street where for twenty five cents; you would see two movies, a serial, cartoons and a movie short with Curly, Larry and Moe.
I am just musing on how great a deal that would have been even in those days when money was pretty tight. It was a deal not only for those of us who attended but for our parents. They could not have found better entertainment value and babysitting service in a safe and friendly environment, all for a quarter of a dollar. That even included a box of popcorn and a chance to win prizes drawn during the intermission.

When I started school I was a sickly kid and so I would often get to stay home. Mom and I would watch Midday Matinee. I was introduced to a host of 1940s melodramas with Bette Davis, Van Johnson, Victor Mature, Lana Turner and all of the fantastic and larger than life actors from an age when movie stars were measured by the emotional response they could create often with, by today’s standards, over the top performances.
These early viewing experiences had an amazing affect on me and so although when asked ‘what do you want to be when you grow up, my most common response was, a Mountie (so I could have a horse), what I really wanted to be, was an ‘actor’. Even the choice of Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman was reflective of my viewing of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, my favorite television show.


Secretly I would go into the bathroom, close the door and copy the emotion packed lines I had heard in Lassie, Sky King, Jungle Jim or Flicka or any of the fabulous old films I had seen with my Mom.
“Don’t die Lassie! Please don’t die!”
I wanted to be an actor and although it took a long circuitous route to get there, I actually made a living doing that for an all too short three years from about 1990 to 1993. I have done a lot of other things in a long working career too. But book-ending these other activities and at the very heart of my business, political life, community activism, music, dance and role as a chaplain, has been the actors approach. I have relied on that to get me through.
I will write about my alternative careers someday but this memoir is about an all-too-short period where I fulfilled a life dream and became a very busy working actor. It is as true as I can remember and I hope you find it entertaining.

One last word of introduction: no one who raises children, who has a real job and who lives a relatively normal family centric life could do the things I have done without the support and encouragement of a wonderful spouse.
Thanks Linda, for standing squarely behind me as I took my career in weird and wonderful directions over the years. And finally, a special ‘hats off’ to my greatest fan and the one who helped plant the dream in the first place, my Mom.