Jamie Salé & David Pelletier

by Uncategorized

The roots of happiness

 From the

Sharon Dunn
The roots of happiness
Salé and Pelletier are adamant the best things in life are free
Who can forget Jamie Salé and David Pelletier’s gold-medal win in pairs figure skating last year, that incredibly romantic routine titled Love Story. And a love story it is, perhaps the best one since Love Story itself, in 1970. Sandy-haired Pelletier looks and acts a bit like rebel Ryan O’Neal, and the wide-eyed, auburn-haired Salé is certainly reminiscent of Ali MacGraw. But this love story has ended with the two walking down the aisle.” Let me straighten this out for everyone,” says Salé. “We’re not married, we’re not even engaged.” She points to her diamond ring, which has sparked many rumours, and says it is “only a friendship ring from my friend.” The friend is obviously Pelletier. And good friends they are. They even live together in Edmonton.” We sure aren’t thinking of marriage,” Pelletier asserts. “We don’t need it.” Yikes, he sounds pretty certain, I think, as I catch Salé’s eye. “One day,” she says in a whisper, “I want marriage and children. Down the road.” But she assures me the relationship is going smoothly. “He’s very romantic,” she confides. “It’s not about the big things, it’s about the little things, like he’ll go for coffee and bring me home my favourite latte.” And the housework, I ask.”He cleans the floors, vacuums, and sometimes he even does laundry,” says Salé. “And we’ve never had a fight about money,” then observes as an afterthought that this might be because they make exactly the same amount. “Exactly,” echoes Pelletier. What that amount is they’re not saying, but it will likely increase now that they are about to begin their professional careers. “We’ve signed a four-year contract to skate with Stars on Ice. We’ll be skating with Kurt Browning,” Pelletier says excitedly. “It’s going to be awesome.” And there won’t be any judges, I point out. “That’s a good thing,” he agrees. The world’s most famous skaters say they are looking forward to the liberty they didn’t have when they had amateur status. “We love to perform and be in front of people,” says Salé. “In amateur skating, you’re restricted, you can’t do this, you can’t do that. Now we can do whatever we want.””Well, almost,” Pelletier says with a laugh. “We have to skate to get our money. But we’re not hockey players, that’s for sure,”

Salé points out, the salary at Stars on Ice not approaching what a hockey star makes.Salé and Pelletier are also adding their names to products, which is what brought them to the opening of the new Roots store at 100 Bloor St. W. last week. They’ll be Roots’ star attraction in its fall advertising campaign. “Newspapers and people were bashing us for not making [endorsement] money following the Olympics. Usually it’s the other way around, you bash people for making too much money.” The couple say they preferred to keep things low key after the Olympics, to give themselves time to relax and participate in celebrity charities. “You have to give back,” says Pelletier. “Money is not the motivating factor.” Salé jumps in. “We are interested in money, but it’s not the most important thing. Our aim is to retire when we’re 35 or 40.” Then she sighs and adds, “I just don’t understand it. Why is everyone so into money? They miss out on the good things.”At my urging, Pelletier is happy to list what some of those things are: “The best things in life are free: family, friends, friendship and love.” He reflects for a moment, then continues. “And the change of seasons makes me really happy. I just took my mountain bike into the woods for three hours. It was beautiful, the way it smelled. My senses were going a thousand miles an hour.”His message is this: “I want people to know that I don’t see the world better today because I have it [money]. And I’ve been on both sides.” “Me too,” echoes Salé, who was raised by a single mom. “Things were tight.”It takes a while but the famous duo finally convince me that, indeed, the best things in life are free: fresh air, friends … and free Roots leather jackets, as many as they want. Now why didn’t I learn how to skate?

by Sharon Dunn

Margaret Atwood

by Uncategorized

The great ones are always unflappable

 From the

Sharon Dunn
The great ones are always unflappable
Margaret Atwood discusses Canada’s ‘strange’ literary past

[Photo: Sharon Dunn, National Post]
Margaret Atwood and Scott Griffin, owner of Anansi Press, at the AGO.
I ran into Margaret Atwood and her partner, Graeme Gibson, at the Art Gallery of Ontario at the opening of the Gauguin to Matisse exhibition.I’d heard through various grapevines that she can be tough and cold, but nothing could be further from the truth — even as I persisted in following her around as “we” viewed the art. She even humoured me by posing with an oil she particularly admired, titled Large Pine near Aix-en-Provence. “I’m pretty fond of Cézanne,” she explained, “because for nine years I lived in the region where he was painting.”More to the point, she’s also fond of a new book in which she had a hand. It’s Ground Works, published by Anansi Press, the amazing Canadian house where she cut her literary teeth way back when, and edited by Toronto poet Christian Bok. It is a collection of experimental fiction, written between 1965 and 1985, and includes work by such luminaries (now they’re luminaries, then they were just getting started) as Michael Ondaatje, Leonard Cohen, Graeme Gibson and Matt Cohen.In her introduction, Atwood wonders why ’60s Canada was such a fertile ground for interesting writing, then offers her theory: “Partly because it was a stranger place in many ways than is often supposed — who remembers the LSD that flowed so freely in London, Ont., in the 1950s — well before the age of Timothy Leary — not to mention the orgies in the cathedral? It was strange in a literary way as well. What other country would have produced a set of Spenserian eclogues spoken in a farmyard by a flock of geese?” (That appeared in A Suit of Nettles, written by James Reaney in 1958.)”I was never a radical,” Atwood told me, “and now I’m too old to be a hippie. The book is not about radicalism,” she added. “It’s about conservatism gone astray.”It’s clear in her introduction that she harbours great affection for those days, and she gave me permission to quote a representative chunk from the introduction:”Many but not all of the writers sampled here [in Ground Works] were also poets. The overlaps — poets publishing poets in presses devoted to poetry — were considerable. Michael Ondaatje was for years a member of the Coach House collective; I myself worked as an editor with House of Anansi Press. Andreas Schroeder worked with Sono Nis, George Bowering was associated with Tish; and these are just a few examples.”This scene was not idyllic. In my own experience, small-press publishing was a hotbed of jealousy and intrigue and puddles of blood on the floor, second only to Rome under Caligula. Coach House Press got around this in the early days by consuming large amounts of mellowing substances – ‘Printed in Canada by mindless acid freaks,’ read their logo, right alongside ‘Copyright is obsolete’; — but at House of Anansi it was not so much drugs as drinking, and no one got out of it without a knife between their shoulder blades. No one but a lunatic, or someone brainwashed by the Girl Guides into thinking she had to do Good Deeds For Others, would have stayed in this situation for long. Which was I? A little of both. But that’s another story.”Before leaving Atwood, I mentioned to her that her book, Bear, had a big impact on me many years ago.”Actually, I didn’t write that, Marian Engel did.”I blushed. She laughed.My horrendous gaffe didn’t offend her a bit. That’s what it’s like when you’re the best in the world; unflappable. As for me, well, that’s another story.

by Sharon Dunn

Ivana Trump

by Uncategorized

“Don’t get mad, dahlink, get a younger man”

 From the

Sharon Dunn
‘Don’t get mad, dahlink, get a younger man’
Ivana Trump is completely in control

[Photo: Kevin Van Paassen, National Post]
Ivana Trump was in town to raise funds for the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.
I first met Ivana Trump at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel many years ago. She was still with The Donald then. As a matter of fact, it was about a week before the media got hold of the Marla Maples story. The Ivana I met at that time looked vulnerable and weak — it was obvious something was wrong in her life. I recall that she ordered a shrimp cocktail and proceeded to pick at it, while The Donald ordered a big, juicy hamburger and fries and had no problem wolfing them down.Last week I saw Ivana for the first time since that day many years ago. It was all very formal. When I was finally escorted into the suite at the King Edward Hotel, Ms. Trump was already seated and poised for the interview. She looked confident and in control, not at all like the Ivana I had met before.”You have five minutes,” an assistant tells me.”Five minutes! This was supposed to be a meal,” I complain, thinking of walking out. I change my mind, deciding there can only be one princess and Ivana has already assumed that role. Not wasting time, I decide to get right to it and ask her if she’s involved in a relationship.”Ms. Trump would rather not …” says the assistant.”So do you have a boyfriend?” I ask again, ignoring the publicist.”Yes,” she replies.I look toward the far end of the room where an exotic-looking, well-dressed young man is taking a seat in the corner.”Is he your lover?” I ask Trump.”Yes,” she answers bravely.I give the guy the once-over (we women do that, too, by the way). I know that Ivana is watching my reaction.”He’s much better-looking than any of your husbands,” I tell her. (She has been married three times.)With that she laughs, and I mean she really laughs. The publicist gives up.Trump is in town to lend her name and considerable marketing skills for the first annual Toast of Humanity, a charity involving members of the wine industry that this year is raising funds for the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. “Anything to do with the children has my attention,” she tells me.A savvy businesswoman and author, Trump is stunning in a beautiful black and sequined pantsuit. “It’s by a young Czech designer named Osming,” she says.She talks about her upbringing in Czechoslovakia. “When I was 13, I wasn’t a good student, and my parents were worried, so my father got me a job on the assembly line at the local shoe factory. After that I got straight As,” she laughs.She stresses the importance of discipline and focus in her life (starting from her days as a competitive skier), advising, “Don’t waste your life, don’t be like Scarlett O’Hara and think about doing it tomorrow. You have to follow up on your dreams, dare to be different.”Trump is a risk taker. Since she lives in New York, I ask her about 9/11. “I wasn’t afraid,” she tells me. “You have to live your life, not in fear. I fly American. I’m shocked and saddened [by what happened], but I’m not afraid.”She’s also a best-selling author. “Do you write your own books?””I dictate them. I tell the stories to the writer,” she replies. Her two latest books are on entertaining and how to stay in business. “Then I read the material and make [verbal] changes.” Now that’s the way to write a book — no toiling over a computer for days, months, years on end!”I refuse to lie down and die,” she tells me, an indication that she must have struggled to get where she is. “I have education, health, I like to work. I always will be able to support myself and count on myself.””Would you support a man?””It depends,” she tells me.I look at the suave and debonair fellow sitting quietly in the corner.”Are you and Ivana in love?” I ask him.”We’re not in love, we’re in Toronto,” he says, before smartly adding, “of course we’re in love.” His name is Rossano Rubicondi and he’s from Rome. Trump tells me he is her “assistant.” (Way to go, Ivana, I think to myself.) And although he’s young, Rubicondi and Trump do not look incongruous together. As a matter of fact, I suspect he has, or soon will have, trouble keeping up with her, as opposed to the other way around.I ask Trump, who writes for Divorce Magazine and does an advice column for The Globe, if she still believes in marriage. “Yes, but it’s harder and harder to stay together, because we’re living longer, so people are living together longer. It used to be that 40 years together was long, but now people are married 60 years or more. It’s not that marriages are failing more,” she concludes, “it’s just that people are living longer.””You’re definitely not the same woman I met at the Polo Lounge,” I tell her, as I get up to leave. She knows exactly what I mean. “Thank you,” she says.After the interview I mingle with the crowd as Trump and boyfriend make their grand entrance. At the sight of the boyfriend, one man rolls his eyes, “Young, isn’t he?” he whispers. “Probably still in his twenties.” Another adds, “She wanted $25,000 for this event, but she only got $5,000.” Yet another man says cattily, “Donald’s got all the money, she’s got nothing.”It appears some of the guys are threatened. How wonderful! And Ivana is out there, with her young, good-looking boyfriend, daring to be different, making money.More power to her.

by Sharon Dunn

Raccoons

by Uncategorized

 So much for getting rid of the beast cheaply

 From the

Sharon Dunn
Raccoon solution on the nose
So much for getting rid of the beast cheaply

A raccoon
I had been away for merely a week, but when I got back I discovered that a big fat raccoon had taken up residence in my walls. Yes, this is Toronto, which seems to have a raccoon population of about eight million, beating the humans by three to one, and giving Toronto the distinction of being Raccoon Capital of the World!

I first saw the beast jump in a hole in my garage wall and disappear, a sure sign all was not well. I love animals, So I tried to live in harmony with my new tenant, but this guy was living inside the wall right behind my bedroom. I could not live with the racket in the middle of the night. Had we been on the same schedule, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but I’m just not as nocturnal as I used to be. He seemed friendly enough, hanging nonchalantly around the door at dinnertime, sharing food with the cat. However, friends pointed out that raccoons do a lot of damage and suggested I call a removal service immediately. When I heard it costs about $200 or so to get rid of raccoons, I resisted. No way was I going to spend that kind of money.

“Just buy a trap,” said a friend, “only $44 at Canadian Tire, no big deal. Once you trap it, you take it to a ravine and let it go.” It seemed easy, and I liked the sound of just $44. So I bought one. My trapper pal had told me to use sardines for bait, but I was now in money-saving mode. Why buy sardines when I have leftover chicken in the fridge? So I gingerly put some chicken inside the crate, then settled down for the night. Suddenly, I jerked awake. There was a racket out on the deck and it wasn’t my raccoon I was smelling. I fretted until first light, then tiptoed outside to inspect. Sure enough, I had trapped a skunk, and he wasn’t happy. I knew what I had to do. Frantically, I picked up the phone.
“$125 to remove the skunk,” the animal-removal service said.
“$125?” I balked, but then imagined myself carrying a skunk to the ravine. Defeated, I told the wildlife removers to come over. Once they had the skunk in custody, I offered them the trap (albeit reeking of skunk goop) at a good price. I was still trying to save money.
“Twenty dollars,” I told them (standing a good distance away, because, of course, they’d been skunked). They shook their heads. They’d done this before, and they knew I’d give them the trap for free — indeed, I pleaded with them to take it off my hands. It seems raccoons love sardines. Skunks don’t, they prefer chicken.

By the next morning, the pros had trapped the resident raccoon with a proper trap (the sides covered in wood) and his garage entry into the walls of my house was repaired. All for just $225 plus tax. Plus, of course, the $125 for the removal of the skunk. And $44 for the cage. Almost $400…
If only I’d invested in the sardines.

by Sharon Dunn edited JAN 31/25

Jon Kinnally

by Uncategorized

 TV’s Will & Grace satisfies, even when it doesn’t

 From the

Sharon Dunn
TV’s Will & Grace satisfies, even when it doesn’t
I want them to marry, but of course that will never happen

[Photo: Yvonne Berg, National Post]
Jon Kinnally, part of the writing team of TV’s Will & Grace, speaks at the Canadian Film Centre’s Test Pattern series at the ROM.

I love a happy ending, I can’t help it. And I can prove it. For example, I still have tapes of The Love Boat, and just last week I sat mesmerized as the Bachelor made his final decision and, on bended knee, chose my favourite, the pretty brunette Helene, to be his one and only. (That should teach the blonds a lesson; more fun my foot. I, too, was once a brunette.) The knight in shining armour is as old a tradition as Mom’s apple pie, and I fall for it every time. So how do I explain my interest in another television show, Will & Grace, where the gorgeous leading man (Toronto’s Eric McCormack) is gay? If every straight female thinks like me, vicariously living the life of the show’s heroine, and if she can never get the handsome hero — well, no wonder the theme of homosexuality on television is still not an easy thing to portray.

I spoke with Jon Kinnally and Tracy Poust, two of the writers of the smash hit TV show, who were at the ROM last week as part of an event sponsored by the Canadian Film Centre. The writing duo admit they were hired on in part because their relationship resembles that of the show’s star couple. Tracy is a nurturing, friendly girl-next-door type, and Jon is good-looking, smart — and gay. Struggling actors when they met waiting tables in New York City, Kinnally & Poust seem to be the backbone of the comedy and are certainly the adventurers. “We’re trying to mess Will up a bit,” says Kinnally. “The problem is that Eric’s a leading man, so it’s not easy to bring insecurity to his character. Although we haven’t yet seen Will intimate”, Kinnally says, “we would like to put that on the air. It’s a huge issue. Intimacy between two men is one of the last frontiers in the U.S.” He goes on to say, “You have to push the envelope. I want Will to make out, I hope it will happen.” Kinnally admits attaining that goal isn’t easy. “We’ve mellowed,” he says, “because we still want our show on the air. We’ve lost sponsors when it gets dicey, they’ve pulled out, ratings go down.” Still, he says when there’s trouble, usually he and Poust are behind it.I

n case you haven’t been watching Will & Grace, let me bring you up to date. Things came to a head on last Thursday’s show, when Grace marries Leo (Harry Connick Jr.). Will admits he is afraid of being left alone, and sees his only option as “having a gay marriage where a drag queen sings Evergreen.” Today Show host Katie Couric, who guests on the wedding episode, is blamed when Grace and Leo find out their marriage is invalid because the minister hired by Couric’s television show isn’t licensed. They then plan a second wedding. This is the out, I figure; there will be no marriage. But the writers surprise me. The wedding does go on, with funny lines, like when the groom says, “I’ll try my best to make Grace as happy as you have, plus sex.” And when Will notes, “The cake showed up with two grooms on it. Is everyone gay in this city?”And even as Will walks Grace down the aisle (after her dad’s back gives out) and whispers, “This may be a bad time to tell you this, but I’m straight,”

I still can’t believe she’s going through with it. And I can’t be the only one, since the show has an incredible following, even among celebs. “We’re becoming a high-end Love Boat” (so that explains my interest), says Kinnally. Aside from Harry Connick Jr., guests have included Woody Harrelson, Matt Damon, Kevin Bacon and Cher. Apparently both Madonna and Britney Spears have expressed interest in doing the show. How does the success affect Kinnally & Poust? “It gives you validation and confidence,” says Poust, adding, “we’re too neurotic to be too confident … a writer’s confidence is as good as the last job you pitched.” With eight other great writers on the show, Poust says, “you get used to a contrary opinion. You have to learn to smile.”Kinnally adds, “We do the first draft and everyone gets their chance at it, to take a joke and make it better. We look at what we wrote and it’s funny, and then we try to make it funnier. Sometimes I’m irritated by the rhythm,” he admits, “joke after joke.” “We also try not to date it,” Poust says. “Like if you watch Murphy Brown now, it’s dated; they’re talking about Dan Quayle. You can trash Madonna because she’ll be around for a hundred years,” she adds. “We’re a pop culture show, but we try to limit it a bit.”

Kinnally gives some advice for young and old writers alike: “Don’t be afraid to write crap. It doesn’t have to be good, it’s all about the rewrite. Don’t be afraid to take chances.” I point out that I recently saw an episode that featured Will coming on to another man. “I was shocked,” I tell Kinnally, adding diplomatically, “not that there’s anything wrong with that.” I chalk up my reaction to the fact that I’ve never seen anything like it on TV. “And that episode is from our first season,” says Kinnally, pointing out how hard it has been through the past four years to progress on the homosexual theme.”Why can’t Will marry Grace?” I ask the writers. Kinnally looks at me in shock. After our discussion about finally breaking taboos, I still want the fairy-tale ending.” He can’t marry her,” he tells me in quiet desperation. “He’s gay.” To prove his point, Kinnally asks, “Sharon do you picture yourself ending up with a woman?” — trying to show me how the homosexual Will could never get away with marrying Grace on the show. I have to admit that I don’t, “but then again I don’t necessarily picture myself ending up with a man, either,” I tell Kinnally. He looks at me, confused. “Don’t go by me,” I add. “But please, (turning a blind eye to the facts), please let Will & Grace get married, they get along so great. I won’t be happy with anything less.” And now look what the writers have done to me. Grace has gone and married Harry Connick Jr. Who would have guessed?

by Sharon Dunn

Nick Mancuso

by Uncategorized

Mancuso as Socrates as Oliver North

 From the

Sharon Dunn
Mancuso as Socrates as Oliver North
‘It was a huge task to take on this guy,’ says the actor of his one-man show

[Photo: Carlo Allegri, National Post]
Nick Mancuso stars in his adaptation of The Death of Socrates at Artword Theatre
“Do you know the difference between an American lobster and a Canadian lobster?” asks actor Nick Mancuso, just a couple of days before the premiere of his one-man show. “Well, with American lobsters, you have to put the lid on the pot when you’re boiling them, otherwise they’ll all try to get out. But with Canadian lobsters, you don’t have to put the lid on because if one tries to get out the others will drag him back in.”

Mancuso uses the lobster analogy to explain what it’s like being a Canadian artist in Canada and why he left to pursue his acting career in the United States more than 25 years ago.Since then, he’s been in more than 100 movies, and co-starred in more than half of them with the likes of Raquel Welch and Kim Basinger. Now, the 54-year-old Italian-born actor has returned to Toronto. “Nadia, my wife, and I decided to raise our son, Sacha, here so he can be around family.” His one-man show, The Death of Socrates, opened last night at Artword, and on Wednesday when I talked to him he certainly wasn’t anticipating an enthusiastic response.”

I expect nothing but bad reviews and a negative response,” he said, primarily because the Canadian media is “unfair” when one of their own tries something different.” Yours is the only paper that even bothered to come out and cover this story. But I’ll continue to do it [his show] and other stories of the same ilk because I believe these kinds of stories need to be told.” Mancuso says the plain truth is that “in Canada if you try to stand out in the performing arts the reaction is, ‘Who does he think he is?’ “And he does stand out, at least in part because there aren’t all that many people who are passionate these days about Socrates.”

The thing about Socrates is that he is underrated. I was looking for a character who would keep me interested but I think I bit off more than I can chew. It was a huge task to take on this guy.” Mancuso, who majored in philosophy at the University of Guelph, gives me a quick lesson on the ancient Greek teacher. “Socrates expressed the foundation of human democratic thinking about 400 years before Christ. He was found guilty by a jury of 600 Athenians (by a margin of only 30 votes) of heresy against the city gods and the corruption of youth.”Plato’s Apology, which recounts Socrates’s speech to the Senate, is regarded as the first courtroom drama ever recorded, and thus prime material for drama, says Mancuso.” After his conviction, when Socrates went in front of the jury to make his speech,” Mancuso says, “they had three options. They could have exiled him, they could have fined him and they could have executed him.”The jury sentenced him to death. “That’s because he pissed the jury off so much. In Greek it’s called arete — manhood. He looked them in the eye and said, ‘I am not afraid to die.’ It wasn’t false courage in the face of death, it was sticking with his beliefs. His students tried to bust him out of jail, but he said, ‘Why would I do that. Athens gave me life and now death. I’m not afraid of death because I don’t know what it is.’ “Mancuso says the last time Socrates was portrayed in Canada was in the 1950s, when Mavor Moore did the classic Socrates — you know, the fuddle-duddle professor, Mr. Magoo kind of character.”

But Mancuso says his adaptation results from another vision of the great Greek, the man who found truth by asking questions. “I’m doing a modern-day Socrates as an Oliver North type of character — a soldier, a fighter, a spiritual warrior.”Socrates died because he believed in the right of the individual to worship the god of his choice. It was all about the separation of church and state. In those days they were autocrats, like Hussein.” Socrates, said Mancuso, believed these rights were worth putting himself on the line for. “He fought it, and all modern democratic beliefs can be traced back to Socrates.”

Of Socrates the man, Mancuso says, “I don’t know much about the soap-opera aspect to Socrates’s life, but I do believe the theory that he was a henpecked husband because he was wandering around the agora [marketplace] all day. And when he finally came home, his wife would have had reason to nag him about it. But, ultimately, Socrates is famous as the teacher who taught his students to ask questions, and more questions, to find truth”.

Mischievously, I ask a question of my own: “Who do you like better, Raquel Welch or Socrates?”
“That’s a tough one,” he replies, without missing a beat. “What they have in common is that they don’t get enough respect. Raquel did it all on her own. She’s a tough-minded woman who worked hard to get where she is. Don’t underestimate Raquel,” he says. “And don’t underestimate Socrates.”The Death of Socrates continues to Dec. 1 at Artword Theatre, 75 Portland St.

by Sharon Dunn

Bill Wyman

by Uncategorized

The one who let the Stones roll on

 From the

Sharon Dunn
The one who let the Stones roll on
Bill Wyman talks about collecting, letting go and a familiar face

[Photo: Chris Bolin, National Post]
“Before [my wife], I could never say ‘I love you’ to anyone – that’s from my working-class background, you know. Men don’t cry.”[TORONTO, ON]

‘A vodka tonic on ice,” Bill Wyman tells the waiter. I’m having lunch with the former Rolling Stones bass player. “You remind me of someone,” he tells me right off the top. “I just can’t put my finger on who.”

Wyman orders a smoked salmon appetizer. “I hope it’s Scandinavian salmon,” he says, “it’s the best.” I mention to him that a number of Stones fans have said he did the right thing leaving the band 10 years ago (instead of hanging on forever).” A lot of people have said that,” he replies, “but [the Stones] are getting good reviews too — maybe they’re right as well. I’ve been happier since I left,” Wyman insists. “I loved my 32 years with the band, but now I have freedom to do what I want.” Since leaving the Stones, Wyman has formed a blues band called Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings, and has just written his fourth book, Rolling with the Stones. An earlier book, Bill Wyman’s Blues Odyssey, won the Blues Foundation’s 2002 ‘Keepin’ the Blues Alive’ Award for Literature.

Wyman is in Toronto to promote ‘Rolling with the Stones’, a virtual encyclopedia on the history of the band. Wyman, a collector since he was a child, saved every piece of memorabilia from the old days. “I’m the only musician from the ’60s who saved the clippings,” Wyman says. He says he even saved memorabilia from other bands, including rare footage of the Beatles. “I gave the Beatles the tape of their first show in America. It was in Washington, filmed in black and white. They had never seen it before. Paul McCartney cried when I first showed it to him.”Unlike other books on bands, says Wyman, “I didn’t have to go to fans for my material — 95 % of the book is from my own collection.” The book took an intense six or seven months to put together, he says. “There was no stopping me, it was a labour of love. I never do anything I don’t like to do now. When I was in the band, I had to be more diplomatic.”The book has more than 3,000 photos and illustrations. “I actually have 40,000 illustrations,” he says, “but we couldn’t use them all.”

Wyman credits co-author Richard Havers for helping him sort through the material. “I couldn’t have done it on my own. “Still, when I ask Wyman to name his favourite collectible, he asks, “Does it have to be from the Stones?” He then confides that it’s a 17th-century book made by a Swedish scientist in the 1600s. “This guy went around the world collecting butterflies and moths and then painted them,” says Wyman in awe. “I only paid 100 pounds for it, but I was offered 800 pounds.” Amazingly, Wyman seems more impressed with this than with his Stones memorabilia, some of which would be a lot more valuable than the butterfly book.

“Who is your favourite Stone?” I ask. “Charlie Watts,” he answers without skipping a beat. “We were the first at everything,” he tells me, “the first married, first with children, the most reliable and stable. We were the straightest rhythm section in rock ‘n’ roll.” On the subject of drugs he surprises me. “I’ve never touched opium, LSD, cocaine.”
“Oh come on,” I say in disbelief.
“Honestly,” he tells me. “I knew I’d probably like it too much, so I stayed away.” He tells me that Watts stayed away from the stuff too. “But often I’d be the only one at the party not doing [drugs],” he says. “People didn’t like it that I wasn’t taking part. It’s like peer pressure, people trying to suck you into something that you don’t want to do. “He has smoked pot, he says, but adds that his true vice is cigarettes. “I’ve been smoking since I was 17,” he says, “smoking 48 years.””Have you tried to give it up?” “Every 20 minutes,” he laughs. “Other than that, I only drink spirits [vodka] and wine at dinner.”

He loves his smoked salmon appetizer. “Scandinavian,” he says. “It’s bugging me. I wish I could think of who you look like.” Wyman, 66, tells me that since leaving the Stones, he has married again and has three young daughters: Jessica, 6, Kate, 8, and Matilda, 4. “My wife, Suzanne, is fantastic,” he tells me. “She never looks at the negative side and she taught me to show my emotions. Before her, I could never say ‘I love you’ to anyone — that’s from my working-class background, you know. Men don’t cry.” Wyman also has a son, “from the 60s — he was eight months old when I joined the Stones.” Stephen, who just turned 40, runs his famous Dad’s Web site.

Wyman, who still lives in his birthplace, London, England, is blunt when he tells me he is not a fan of the United States. “I’ve never had the desire to live in America. I’ve never liked the lifestyle — it’s too wild and speedy for me. Most people are happy being where their roots are, and my roots are London.”
“Are you a monarchist?” I want to know. Wyman seems surprised by the question. “Yeah, I guess I am. I knew Princess Di. She used to bring her sons to my restaurant [Sticky Fingers]. She knew that we would never call the press, she was safe there. I knew Dodi Fayed as well. He was so sweet, quiet and shy”. Wyman says the restaurant is going strong and has three times been voted top spot for the best burger in London. I decide now’s not the time to bring up the subject of mad cow disease.

Wyman says his grandmother, who raised him during the war, was the most important influence on his life. “My grandma taught me everything. We were very poor, but … she’s the one who got me into collecting things. I was enlisted in the air force when she died, and I didn’t go through the mourning thing — it got suppressed. And when my dad died [in 1990], I was on tour with the Stones in Japan. Every show brought in 54,000 fans and we were in the third show of 10, so I waited until the tour was over, and then I came home for the funeral.”

Wyman says he went into therapy in 1992 to help him express his feelings. “You don’t realize how much gets bottled up,” he says. I ask Wyman if he gets along with his former band members. “What do you mean?” he says, miffed by the question. “Of course we get along. They’re my mates. I see them a lot, except for Keith [Richards] since he lives in America [Connecticut]. They’re my family. I know who you look like,” Wyman says triumphantly, “you look like Wendy.” Wendy? Some exotic young thing from his past, I hope.
“Doesn’t she look like Wendy?” he yells to his book co-author, Richard Havers, who is sitting with publicity people at the next table.
“Who’s Wendy?” I want to know.
“She’s my cook,” Wyman says.
“Your cook?” I complain. “I look like your cook.”
“She’s great,” says Wyman, catching my disappointment.”
How old is she?”
“21,” says Richard.
“29,” says one of the publicity guys, laughing.
“In her thirties,” says Wyman, edging closer to what I’m sure is the truth. I stop him there.

Wyman, who is thrilled with his age and stage in life, sums things up this way: “You’ve got to be in control, you can’t leave anything to chance,” he says. “Whatever you do, you must always hand in the ‘finished’ material. If you don’t, ‘they’ f— it up. Finish this line, Sharon,” he tells me, “If you want it done properly…”

by Sharon Dunn

The Royal Winter Fair

by Uncategorized

 A bit of country in the big city

 From the

Sharon Dunn
A bit of country in the big city
Curly-haired horses, odd veggies and cowboys for all to see

[Photo: Peter Redman, National Post]
MORE ENTERTAINING THAN VEGETABLES: A competitor tries his luck in the calf-roping event during the rodeo show.[TORONTO, ON]

I just don’t get it. Maybe it’s me, but what is going on at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair? First I go through a room with big vegetables — huge pumpkins, prize-winning carrots and other delights that I can’t even identify, and don’t want to. I try to get enthused, but frankly, edible agricultural products just don’t excite me, even big ones.Then I move on to the sheep room, where various piles of fleece are displayed, looking just like the lint from my dryer, only bigger. Some have ribbons on them, meaning they won, some don’t. It must have been fun judging these. Maybe if the fleece was in the form of a coat it could get a rise out of me, but not in this condition.

There’s the popular rabbit room, with dozens of bunnies sitting in cages. Why are there so many, I wonder? Probably started the day with just two… I’m told there’s great food, so I wander over to an area that consists mainly of mall-type fast-food concessions — Chinese, pizza and the like. There is a fancy restaurant set up under a tent, with prices that would make a cowboy blush. When I walk by, all of the seats are empty. Cowboys have to win a lot of rodeos to be able to afford this place.There are lots of booths, but I can’t even get a fudge sample, “You have to buy,” I’m told. Why, that’s downright unneighbourly, especially if you don’t have a media pass and have to pay the $20 adult door fee ($15 for children).They’re selling everything here, like a giant flea market, from knick-knacks to music to vases. The only thing I got excited about was the National Post subscription booth. I’m not just saying this because I work here, they’re giving away black horsy-type blankets with every three-month subscription! I take out three subscriptions — for my lawyer, my mother and my sister, and they give me a fourth blanket by mistake. Of course, I keep it. Next I end up in the Cavalcade of Horses, where competitions are in full swing. A guy is riding around the arena holding a tray with a Champagne flute teetering atop (is he a waiter or a horseman?). But horses are the reason I’ve come here. I have brought my son Luke, who has allergies, to check out the so-called hypoallergenic horse, a Bashkir Curly, which has been bred to bring hope to horse-loving allergy sufferers. Bashkir Curlies have been around for a while: Napoleon, when he conquered Austria in 1805, found what he described as “poodle-hair horses” at the Vienna Zoo and had them transported back to France.”It’s been a pretty exciting week,” says owner Sonja Oakes of Sir Charles, the curly-haired horse she has brought to the fair. “A lot of people are coming to touch, feel, smell. They want to see if they’re going to have an allergic reaction to him.” And no one has, says Oakes proudly.

[Photo: Peter Redman, National Post]
Sonja Oakes shows off Sir Charles, a Bashkir Curly horse.
“We’ve had people from all over the world come to our farm [outside of Guelph] who are so allergic to horses they want a map to the hospital before they come. They arrive with their medical kit, (including an epi-pen for severe allergic reactions) and a change of clothes. The worst we’ve had is a runny nose.””How are you feeling?” I ask Luke.”Fine,” he says, “no allergies.” I, however, sneeze, and my nose starts to run, I can’t blame the curly, what with the hay and other horses and who knows what else in the air. Oakes says.Sonja and her husband, Greg, have the biggest collection of curlies in the country, with 45 of them on their ranch. I run into a cowboy named Richard Thompson who runs Horsemanship Clinics: “It’s the humans who need the training, not the horses,” he says. At the clinic he teaches people how to communicate and bond with their horse, and how to break bad habits.”When a horse nuzzles, you think it’s because he likes you,” says Thompson, but this isn’t so. “It’s because he’s a prey animal, and he knows if there’s danger he can knock you down and get away. He’s using you as a human shield.” The most important part of the Royal Winter Fair, I’m told, is the invaluable connections and friendships that are forged for future livestock sales. But it turns out the Royal is not the biggest agricultural fair in the country. Regina holds that distinction, mainly because it’s rural and Toronto isn’t. But some of us in the big city have an obvious great interest in vegetables and sheep fleece and hens and rabbits and rodeos and hogs, and everything country. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but you must admit it is a stretch in the big city.

by Sharon Dunn

Sid Luft

by Uncategorized

“This Judy thing is everywhere”

 From the

Sharon Dunn
“This Judy thing is everywhere”
Sid Luft, 87, is still obsessed by his former wife, Judy Garland

[Photo: Sharon Dunn, National Post]
Sid Luft and his wife, Camille, at The Ivy restaurant in Beverly Hills, frequented by stars and nasty birds.[BEVERLY HILLS, CA]

The Ivy restaurant in Beverly Hills is a favourite haunt of Hollywood stars. This particular day, Billy Dee Williams is at the next table and Jane Adams of Frasier fame (she’s Mel, Niles’ second wife) is at the table behind me.
“I saw you on Frasier,” I hear Billy Dee tell her excitedly. Across the street, J. Lo is shooting her music video with boyfriend Ben Affleck in tow. But my lunch date isn’t new Hollywood. He is as old Hollywood as you can get. I am meeting Sid Luft, the former husband of the late Judy Garland, father of Lorna, and a Hollywood legend himself, having produced Garland’s hit movie ‘A Star Is Born’, still on the list of the top 100 movies of all time. Sid just turned 87. When he walks, he walks stiffly, and when he drives, it’s a 25-year-old brown Mercedes Benz. “I’m taking it with me when I go,” he insists gruffly, “wherever the hell that will be.”

Luft isn’t the most popular guy in Hollywood these days — there’s a rumour that he tried to sell Judy’s Academy Award, a definite no-no in this town. It’s a rumour he denies. Wife Camille is with him.
“This Judy thing is everywhere,” she complains. “You can’t get away from it.” I’ve got to admit she’s right. During my stay in Hollywood, I see Judy’s image on every street corner. Garland is Hollywood ,and Sid, like Judy’s fans, never did let go.
“How could you?” he says. “She’s larger than life, she envelopes me.” Even now, Luft is hanging on to Judy for dear life. “I’ve been working on a project,” he tells me. “It’s called the Judy Garland Event.” Luft has painstakingly restored a 100-minute, two-act presentation featuring Garland and powerhouse duets with daughter Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and other classic stars. The event will showcase rare, recently discovered performances in high-definition digital projection. In the show, Luft focuses on what he calls the “triumphs” of his years with Garland: “Carnegie Hall, The Chicago Opera House, San Francisco’s Curran Theatre, Toronto’s O’Keefe Centre and Radio City Music Hall.”

Luft, who was profiled positively in estranged daughter Lorna’s best-selling book and resulting screenplay Me and My Shadows, says, “This show will blow you away … but I need the right guy to produce it.” The right guy, he tells me, is none other than Canadian legend Norman Jewison. Jewison did some of Judy’s best television shows, Luft adds. “He’s the one who should be directing this series. But I don’t know how to get to him.”

While Sid considers this dilemma, another more acute problem develops during an otherwise pleasant lunch — a persistent bird insists on dumping all over our table, and us. I’ve never seen anything quite like it really. Doesn’t the winged terror know this is a very exclusive, expensive place? Why isn’t he wreaking havoc on some stinking fishermen’s wharf somewhere? I mean, really! A hastily raised umbrella does little to discourage the combative bird, who insists on coming at us from all sides. After a well-directed missile hits a bull’s eye on my latte, that’s it, we get up to leave — to the tune of US$250 (remember, this is only a lunch). Obviously, no money off for bird dung and, to add insult to injury, the establishment has the nerve to charge for my tainted latte. Although I’m not paying (the Lufts insist), I complain so loudly that even Billy Dee is looking uncomfortable.

“I’m on to something with this show,” Sid tells me, completely unfazed by the bird poo. The bird swoops and hits Luft’s jacket.
“Big deal,” he says, not bothering to wipe it. People must get used to taking crap in Hollywood, I think. Focused on Judy and his project, Sid says, “Just wait and see how big this will be. As Frank Sinatra said shortly before his death, ‘The rest of us will all be forgotten — except Judy.’ ” With that final thought, Luft hobbles to the car, the bird crap clearly visible on his sleeve.

by Sharon Dunn

Helen Gurley Brown

by Uncategorized

Never tell him how many men you’ve slept with

 From the

Sharon Dunn
Never tell him how many men you’ve slept with
It’s still all about finding a man, says Helen Gurley Brown

[Photo: Glenn Lowson, National Post]
Helen Gurley Brown, 80, is the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan International.
Helen Gurley Brown is looking good. She’s wearing a Chanel-look fuchsia suit with black fishnet stockings and reams of gold jewellery. “Most of it is just cheap,” she says.”No it’s not,” I correct her, noticing at least two Chanel bangles and a Cartier or two.”OK, so they’re not all cheap,” says the 80-year-old glamour girl, who is eyeing my attire. “I want your boots,” Gurley Brown tells me, referring to my knee-high snake-look tan footwear. “Where did you get them?” On closer inspection she complains, “The heel’s not high enough.”Not high enough? “It’s at least three inches,” I tell her. She shrugs.”It’s OK to love clothes and jewellery,” she says, defending herself. “It doesn’t mean you are a bad person. You can still be a meaningful member of the human race.”Gurley Brown is rail thin and confides that she always has been. “But when I turned 40,” she says, “I started doing old-fashioned calisthenics for one and a half hours every day, and I’m still doing them.”In spite of her 100-pound frame she says, “I never met a dessert I didn’t like.” If she was eating now, “I’d start with calamari, and then I’d have crab cakes and creamed spinach, without the cream. But sometimes, I not only skip desserts, I skip meals.” Today she’s skipping. So much for lunch, but fasting won’t hurt me either.I grew up on Helen Gurley Brown. As a young woman, I was devoted to Cosmopolitan, a magazine she still has a hand in running. (She is editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan International.) I ask her about the U.S. Cosmo that she no longer runs, and that I no longer buy.”It’s different than it used to be. When I had it, we did one major article on sex, one article on man/woman relationships, one on career and one on health. The new Cosmo deals mainly with men/women relationships and sex,” she says. “But it works. People are buying it — it’s No. 1 among college girls.” And even though it’s not the same magazine she edited for 32 years, “the idea is the same — to help the reader improve her life, solve problems and find a man.”Find a man? I’m shocked. “Is the object of the game still to find a man?”She nods. “Cosmo gives hope and inspiration to help you get out there.”To prove her point, Gurley Brown tells me the publishers want to do a reprint of her ’60s bestseller, Sex and the Single Girl.”But I’ll be writing a chapter on how things have changed,” she admits. “When I wrote the book, the reigning philosophy was that if you were single, female and 30, you might as well throw yourself over the Grand Canyon. And if you were single, female and having sex, it was really over.”My feeling,” says Gurley Brown, “is have sex and enjoy it — marriage, you can always get, there’s no raging race to get married.”She says she’s also noticing that “men are handling ‘that kind of woman’ better.” That’s because “they don’t have any choice”, she says, but it’s also because, according to her, 1. the independent woman is bringing in a lot more money; 2. the man’s friends and associates are impressed with her success; and 3. the woman is still doing most of the other “stuff”, like sending the Christmas cards, organizing the social calendar and managing the housework.”We hope that in another lifetime, men will become our domestic equals,” she says sarcastically, “but it hasn’t happened yet.”Gurley Brown is married to well-known movie producer 88- year-old David Brown (Jaws, Chocolat, Angela’s Ashes), who was in town recently for a conference sponsored by the Ontario Media Development Corporation and The Royal Ontario Museum. “I was involved with a couple of womanizers when I was in my 20s, one an accomplished Don Juan,” says Gurley Brown, who was 37 when she wed. “I want to point out Don Juans wouldn’t have so much luck with women if they weren’t good at ‘something’, if you know what I mean.”You can’t help it. You always go back [to that type]. When David came along, I was 37 and I thought, ‘This is an honourable guy, he won’t lie, cheat, or steal, and he’s good in bed.’ ” But he didn’t want to marry her, she confides. “He’d been married twice before.”What did she do? “I used emotional blackmail,” she tells me. “I told him, ‘I love you, I’ll miss you, but you have to disappear because I want to get married.'”I’d been single long enough,” she says. “Two weeks later he called. They always call after two weeks,” she informs me. (She’s right.) “When he called I said, ‘Do you want to get married?’, and he said, ‘We need to talk’. I told him, ‘We’ve already talked.’ And I wouldn’t see him.”He came back after six weeks. “He wanted to come over and go to bed, as usual with men,” she says, “but we set a date.” Even then, says Gurley Brown, her soon-to-be husband was still balking.”David said, ‘I’m a good guy, I’m not cheap, we get along great, so why do you want to get married?’ ” More proof, we agree, that men have to be dragged down the aisle kicking and screaming.Gurley Brown tells me that she’s been a good wife (43 years and counting). “I think it’s because I had all my affairs before I got married.”
“If your husband had had an affair, would you have left him?” I ask.”I wouldn’t have left him, I would have killed him,” she says. “I could never have gone through what I went through with the Don Juan all over again. I couldn’t face it. I would have had to divorce him.” But she recognizes the contradiction. “In my book, Sex and the Single Girl, I advise single women to sleep with married men,” she tells me, “for the experience.”This non-apologetic ’60s icon says her best advice to women is “Never tell your guy how many men you’ve slept with.” She gets her point across in a poem she’s made up. Here it is:”How many men before me, he’ll ask?Trying to tell, is quite a taskThe 5th Amendment, he’s not buying,If you say ‘none,’ he’ll know you’re lyingSo throw him a number, with charm and graceSo that you can take your placeSomewhere between slut and virginityThe number you should throw is…three.”So three it is. “I never talk about my past to my husband,” Gurley Brown says, “except one old boyfriend of mine from Zurich, who, even after I married, sent me a 12-pound box of chocolates every Christmas.”He died a few years ago,” she says, sighing. “We miss the chocolate.”

by Sharon Dunn