Jerry Reed

 Myrna Lorrie frequented my afterhours in the seventies, She was a lot of fun and I caught a few of her shows and liked her music. One night she showed up on the arm of Jerry Reed. (I'm a lover, not a fighter) Rosanne Cash was with them and she was with one of the Eagles. (I can never remember which one) apparently, she had a fling with him They were there almost every night for a week or so.

Helen Shaver

Helen was a night person, She was intelligent and sexy.
She came to my bar often and we enjoyed each others company. She invited me for dinner one night,
And in her sensuous sultry voice recited one of her poems about losing her virginity to a sailor in my ear.
I suffered instant arousal. Unfortunately it was not to be her sister dropped in and the situation never rose again so to speak. After she went to LA. We got together at a TO film festival. I introduced her to the MacLean Brothers and we had a great party. Ahh. . .Helen sigh

Elizabeth Ashley

Elizabeth married Jimmy McCarthy an old friend as well as a friend of Murray McLauclan. She was in Toronto quite a bit shooting films. Somehow I became her Toronto buddy and we spent some good times. running around the city in her limos and dining and clubbing not to mention the times at my bar. There many rumours going around about us and I only wish they were true. But even after she split up with Jim we remained friends until her cocaine bust kept her out of Canada.

Michael Ironside

Mike was still at the Art college of Ontario when I met him. He somehow got into my afterhours club with somebody and soon became a regular. he was in his early twenties exhuberant, totally careless and very full of himsel and very much a pain in the ass. I had to take down my dartboard because he hit a bystander in the leg he was always too full of fun and too loud etc. etc. He won an award for a  student film he had made and one night and brought 30 film students from the awards and was very troubled when I wouldn't let them in. But I didn't really like him and he was mostly a pain in the ass. But after a few years of him hanging around my place and sleeping it off there more than a few times.
We finally became friends.

One night at my new bar at Queen and Bathurst was very crazy. We had a special bar made from some really old planks from a wrecking company and planed them and wanted to cover them in acyrlic. So my partner Greg got some crazy friend of his to do this. It was a big job and all of us were breathing too many fumes etc. But somehow his friend got it wrong and the plastic never set and you could't lean on the bar too long without sticking to it. So some weeks later Mike was on a tear and when I closed the bar he was passed out in a chair so i left him. My Apartment was a bove the bar and I wake up to this thumping on the floor. So I get up and go down to the bar. Mike had woke up for a minute and crawled on top of the bar and went to sleep. so he wakes up and his face is glued to the bar. When I got there he had managed to reach a pool cue and bang on the ceiling. I finally stopped laughing long enough to pry him loose without too much loss of skin. Michael and I hung out together most of the time for a few years,(see Kathrine O'Hara) I could probably write a book. One Afternoon we met a couple of chicks and decided to get them drunk etc. We went to liquor Store and got ingrediants for a giant Sangria complete with a bottle of brandy.
So we smoked some dope drank a bunch of wine and woke up about 8 hours later very naked and very hung over. My camera was laying on the table and when I got the film developed we discovered we had got drunk and the chicks had taken our clothes off and took pics of us.-more to come

Mary Margret O'Hara

Back in the day MM and Cathrine and I were good friends. We spent many nights chatting and laughing together in the 505 and later at my bar. One night at my bar I was a bit high and asked Mary Margret for a date. she gave me a kiss and a hug and said "don't be silly Gary;" I do miss those days.

Marcus O'Hara

Marcus O'Hara did me one of those favours that just takes the cake .
At the 2nd or third Toronto Film Festival one of the major parties was held at Toronto City Hall.
The layout was a disaster. The bar was set up all wrong and it was impossible to get a drink. the place was just solid lineup. I was waiting in line with a bunch of friends when I got a tap on the back. It was Marcus he was a bartender or some such thing. He pulled me into the center of the room in the space between the facing elevators. here he had set up for me a large portable bar. several bottles of liquor with mix and ice. Soon I had my own private party with my friends and the festival VIPs. You cant buy that kind of favour.

Machel Titlebaum

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John MacGregor

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Jim Jones

When I first opened there was a lot of nights when there would just be Danny, Mike MacDonald and Jim Jones and me listening to my fabulous juke box and drinking beer till dawn.

Joe Hall

 Joe lived across the street.creative and on the fringe. Your Barbill is forgiven

Jann Poldass

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Jack Backstrom

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Jack Webster

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Gentle giant (the Band)

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Fraser Finlayson

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Rick McCarthy

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Jim McCarthy

I I knew Jim from his days with The Dirty Shames and as a solo folkie too. A Pilot Tavern buddy and he married Elizabeth Ashely. Eliz and I were good friends too.

Richard 'Hock' Walsh

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Mose Scarlett,

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Paul Shaffer.

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Don Owen

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Tom Hedley

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Warren Zevon

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Valdy

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Original Sloth Band

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Marc Jordan

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The Good Brothers

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Ramblin' Jack Elliott

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City Muffin Boys

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John Allan Cameron

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Keith McKie

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Dede Higgins,

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Luke Gibson

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Ric Evans

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Frenchie McFarlane

Frenchie McFarlane (a.k.a. Jacques Le Strap) is an accomplished stand up, comedian, actor, writer, impressionist, dialectician and radio television personality.

Famous for his role as the New York City Cabbie/ Montreal Goalie, his routine is energetic, hilarious and uses current events to split the sides of the people in his audience.

Since moving to Toronto in 1973 from his native Montreal, Frenchie has been the headline comedy act in numerous clubs across the country. Equally at home at the El Mocambo or The Royal York Hotel, Frenchie can provide materials for a variety of audiences ranging from sports banquets, business luncheons, rock 'n roll events to family oriented shows.

The relationship between politics and comedy being what they are Frenchie was ultimately drawn into the political arena. In 1982 Frenchie ran a "dramatically" close and humorous campaign for the office of Mayor of Toronto with the slogan, "If we're going to have comedians in City Hall, then let's have a pro!" He came within a mere 118,000 votes of the winner Art "Eggs" Eggleton. Naturally he demanded a recount! His slogan for "85 - "If we're going to have Eggs at City Hall, then let's have Frenchie... he's a good one!" (2nd. attempt Nov. 7/00, lost this time by 472,000 votes!)

Frenchie has been opening act for Jim Carrey, Buddy Hackett, Robert Klein, Don Harron, Pete Barbutti, Burton Cummings, Bobby Vinton, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Boomtown Rats, The Nylons, The Rolling Stones and Don Cherry, to name a few!

Frenchie's special skills include being a stand-up comic, impressionist, comedy-writer, dialects and accents specialist, Elvis Impersonator, bilingual emcee, after dinner speaker, motivational speaker, roast host and put-on's (where he pretends to be an expert in various disciplines, for example a medical doctor, at conventions).

Versatile, Talented, funny and terrific to work with, hiring Frenchie is like hiring several people at once. Just take your pick...

Frenchie McFarlane

Address: 38 Yonge Boulevard, Toronto, ON Zip: M5M 3G5
Phone: 416-480-0077 Fax: 416-484-0343
URL: www.frenchiemcfarlane.bravehost.com 

| Email us

Info: 

Frenchie McFarlane (AKA "Jacques Le Strap", syndicated radio/internet sports/political reporter) is an accomplished stand up, comedian, actor, writer, impressionist, dialectician and radio television personality. Famous for his role as the New York City Cabbie/ Montreal Goalie, his routine is energetic, hilarious and uses current events to split the sides of the people in his audience.

Book early for Christmas and New Year's parties, including "house parties" along with regular event locations. We will bring the "live" laffs to you right into your home rec room!!

Frenchie's AKA includes "The Hockey Comic", for all events: sports and celebrity dinners, corporate dinners, roasts, Awards Nights (both keynote comic & comic/emcee!) along with all fundraising events, both charity & corporate, golf tournaments, curling bonspiels, ("divorce parties" recently added to the list!) Contact "Frenchie" at www.frenchiemcfarlane.bravehost.com for more info or at 416-480-0077 (bilingual shows also available)

Donnie McDougall

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David Whiffen

 

David and I hung out for a bit. Mostly at the Pilot and parties, he was in between bands and drinking heavily. We went to a party at Footsies (Lightfoot) one night. It started with quaaludes and Mai-Tais.

I never saw David after that party for some years. He would come to my After-Hours joint when he came to town. He had quit drinking and so he was the only one I allowed to smoke dope inside my bar.

David Wiffen (born 11 March 1942) is an English-Canadian folk singer-songwriter. Two of his songs, "Driving Wheel" and "More Often Than Not", have become cover standards.

Dick Smothers

he Smothers Brothers
Dickie Smothers came to the bar one night with a young lady. We hit it off and talked to the early hours. He had just bought a vineyard in California and we had great converstion on wine. They were playing the Royal York Hotel the next night so I got a date and went. for twenty bucks to the Maitre De I got a front row table. The Smothers show was fantastic and Dickie saw me from the stage and after the show invited us upstairs to a private party they were hosting for the cast of Chorus Line. He introduced me to Tommy and in the course of the night they mentioned they were looking for some drugs. I laid some tranquelizers and grass on them from my personal stash to tide them over.

Danny Marks

When I first opened there was a lot of nights when there would just be Danny, Mike MacDonald and Jim Jones and me listening to my fabulous juke box and drinking beer till dawn.

Coleen Peterson

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Bucky Berger

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Bruce Cockburn

 Bruce was here several time mostly looking for his wife

Brant (Barney) Frayne

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Bob Rogers

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Bob Miller

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Blair MacLean

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Bernie Taupin

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Bernie Fiedler

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Bernadette Andrews

 Bernadette was the Art Critic at theTelegram and Arts Canada. She was charming, witty and intelligent.
We went together for a while. She died of a mysterious virus and is much missed.

I ran into Bernadette in the club 22 a few weeks before she died. She gve me a big wet kiss. She was her healthy fun loving self and her almost sudden death was a shock and surprise to us all.

Not long after that I was on a sailboat in the Bahamas with Murray MacLauchlan, We were miles from anywhere when I took extremly sick I had a high fever for over a week and lost 30 pounds. All I could think of was the wet kiss from Bernadette. It took days to get to a hospital which was a joke. Murray got me on a plane to Toronto wher I found out I had Infectious mononucleosis. A most serious case that lasted for months.

Barry Callaghan

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Ann Dunn

Ann Chopik Dunn
I went out with Ann for a while. We partied with the smother's Brothers at the Royal York
and I attended her Daughter's wedding at the club. Great Ukrainian party.
She was a classy lady

The Matador Club was a country music venue in Toronto opened by Ann Dunn in 1964. The exterior of the club, complete with marquee signage, still exists today, though the building itself is currently vacant.

The after-hours dance venue was a hot spot among Torontonians and tourists alike, and was said to be frequented by country notables like Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn, as well as local celebrities like Leonard Cohen and Catherine O'Hara. While originally a country music venue, by the 1980s the Matador featured a wider variety of music including rock 'n' roll, blues, and rockabilly. During this time the Matador was a busy and popular venue where local and itinerant headliners would regularly drop in to jam after their gigs, treating live music lovers with impromptu performances.

k.d. lang's official music video for "Turn Me Round" (1987) features the Matador sign and street frontage as well as long shots of the stage with its uniquely odd background array of dusty cowboy boots and dozens of signatures.^[1]

Big Sugar (band)'s official music video for "Ride Like Hell" (1995) was filmed here by director Eric Yealland and DP Douglas Koch and was nominated for a Much Music Video Award.^[2]

The space was a dance hall with an 18-foot ceiling, hardwood floors, a stage, and numerous items of country music memorabilia, such as antlers, cowboy boots, and records. An unlicensed establishment, the Matador Club provided live music every Friday and Saturday night from 1:30am to 5:30am.

The club was inaccurately described as a "booze can" by the time of its closure on March 1, 2010 when the dance hall was sold.^[3]

DUNN, Ann Chopik - Of Oshawa, ON. Peacefully passed away on Tuesday, June 8, 2010, at the Oshawa Lakeridge Hospital. Ann was predeceased by her parents Harry and Mary (Plypew) Chopik. Devoted mother of five children: Barry (Rose), Lonny (Wendy), Charmaine (Sheba and Nanuk), Lenore Farrell and Lona (Everett) O'Reilly. Ann is also survived by her former husband Alonzo Thomas Dunn. Baba enjoyed and loved her eight grandchildren Colleen, Sara, Joseph, Heather, Katherine, Laura, Scarlett and Justin, plus five great-grandchildren Liam, Reagan, Hayden, Avery and Jackson. Ann will be sadly missed by her brother Paul Chopik and sisters Sylvia McPhee and Rose Rolko and all of her nieces and nephews. Ann was the proud Founder and Proprietress of the renowned Matador Club in West Toronto from 1964-2007, a legendary night club. As per her wishes, private services were held at MOUNT LAWN RECEPTION CENTRE in Whitby (905-443-3376 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 905-443-3376 end_of_the_skype_highlighting), on Sunday, June 13, 2010. A Memorial Mass will be held on Tuesday, June 22, 2010, at St. George's Ukrainian Catholic Church, 38 Lviv Blvd., Oshawa. In lieu of flowers, donations accepted for the Heart & Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Hearing Society, www.chs.ca

Alex Cameron

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Al Cromwell

 I knew Al from the early sixties. he was a talented folk singer. He got involved in scientology and seemed to lose it. He was mostly driving Cab when he hung out at my place in the seventies. He talked about a comeback but it never happened.

Alan MacRae

Alan McRae, Ont.: Born in the British Isles, the son of a highland piper, Alan was a gold miner and with ... was instrumental in organizing Canada's first folk club in Vancouver, BC. He moved to Toronto and became the resident singer at Toronto's first "folk bar" the Steeles' Tavern. he played the Horseshoe Tavern most of the summer of 1975.  He was a mentor and friend to many Toronto folk musicians through the 60s and 70s before he passed away. T.C. played the Horseshoe the summer of 75 and hung out at my bar. I admire his drive a real folkstar in spite of lack of natural talent.

Diane Lawerence

Glen Elliott

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Nick Auf der Maur

 Nick had a membership and often came to Toronto for the weekend.
He came to the bar a half a dozen times.I guess I was his secret hideaway. I wish I had more to say but he was intelligent and engaging and I was always glad to see him and enjoyed talking to him. I was very surprised when I found out who he was and very sad when he died so young.

Nick Auf der Maur (April 10, 1942 – April 7, 1998)^[1] was a journalist, politician and "man about town" boulevardier in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was also the father of rock musician Melissa Auf der Maur, through his marriage to Linda Gaboriau.

The youngest of four children of Swiss immigrants J. Severn and Theresa Auf der Maur, he was a regular at various downtown Montreal bars, and often transacted official and unofficial business there, entertaining visitors to the city, telling stories, and meeting with a wide range of Montrealers from all walks of life.

Mordecai Richler claimed that Auf der Maur once went bar-hopping with Conrad Black and when they accidentally wandered into a gay bar and were asked to leave, Black indignantly insisted it was his democratic right to stay, so they did 

In 1974, he was elected as a city councillor for Montreal for the Rassemblement des citoyens de Montréal (Montreal Citizens' Movement). In 1976, he formed the Alliance démocratique(Democratic Alliance) party and ran as a candidate in the 1976 provincial election; the party soon disbanded. In 1978 and 1982, he was again elected city councillor under the "Municipal Action Group" banner, and in 1986 was re-elected as an independent candidate. In the 1984 federal election, he ran as a Progressive Conservative candidate in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, and although the Conservatives won that election in a landslide including many Quebec seats, Auf der Maur failed to win a seat.

Nick Auf Der Maur...meet Michael Sarrazin

Sometime around 1994 me and my brother JDorganized a meeting of Michael Sarrazin and his equally famous lifelong buddy Nick Auf der Maur atGrumpy’s Bar on Bishop. We videotaped the interview for our Montreal TV show Behind the Scenes, but never got around to airing it. One day I'll go through the old pile and find the video and pop it on the net, until then here's a transcript of the interview.
Nick: When kids say they want to be a race car driver, or a pilot you don't really quite take it seriously. Michael Sarrazin always said that he wanted to be an actor. You really had it in your head that is you wanted to do?
Sarrazin: Almost from the very beginning. Well we were in a high school play together, weren't we?
Nick: Yeah that's right, but I didn't take it seriously.
Sarrazin: Yeah. But there was a period of time I went to art school for a year, but basically that was my focus,
Nick: But there is one thing to want to be it and another to actually do it, how did you get to do it? And the actual fact, I remember it was the drudgery and work and an awful lot of not working?
Sarrazin: Yes the first test you go to is the test of your commitment and whether or not you can stick with it. At the beginning was very tough and spare as you know my early days in Montreal were virtually nothing. But suddenly things got momentum.
Nick: Do you remember your first paying job?
Sarrazin: Yeah the National Film Board was doing a historical series. I was 17 they were doing the Fathers of Confederation. I was hired as a stand-in for Robert Christie because I was the only guy tall enough. He was playing Sir John A. MacDonald.
Nick: You were a stand-in for Sir John A?
Sarrazin: As played by Robert Christie.
Nick: You were 17 years old.
Sarrazin: Yes the pay was $15 a day and I was actually on a movie set. I think everyone know what a stand in is, except for you Nick. In order to give the principal actors a rest during the lighting set ups they have people with their size and shapes to stand there so the actors won't be tired to perform, so I did that and it took all of one summer.
Nick: How did you get the job?
Sarrazin: You just hear things, like: "The National Film Board needs stands in." I think I initially applied initially as an extra and then they singled me out because I was the right height for Bob Christie. So that meant I had a regular job and would be working through the series and then the next thing that evolved out of that is we went out and did crowd scenes, I started doing work as an extra with business. I was singled out like a crowd scene... simulating a riot. I made a little extra money, the reason I remember that is that I used that money to join the union. And I became a professional actor at 17.
Nick: And then that went on a little bit work, but you did some studying too.
Sarrazin: Yes I joined up with a group in Montreal who worked with the Actors Studio and they formed a workshop on St. Lawrence Street. And a lot of actors from the studio flew up to give seminars 4 or 5 days at a time then. I filled that up with up work with some of the semi-professional theatre companies here in Montreal that we had at that time, the Trinity Players and Studio Club
Nick: Yes I remember The Studio Club. I was the assistant stage manager.
Sarrazin: I think I was your assistant (laughs)..
Nick: Well then at one point you decided you couldn't do it in Montreal then you decided to go to New York and then Toronto.
Sarrazin: New York I went to primarily to study because I was given through the teachers here, who were connected to the actors studio and I was introduced to Lee Strasberg and he accepted me into his private classes so I went down there for not quite a full year to study with him and roam around New York and support myself whichever way I could. I couldn't work, I just studied, I couldn't work because I didn't have the proper documentation.
Nick: Then you went to Toronto.
Sarrazin: Then I came back briefly to Montreal and did a play here which got some notice and somebody wrote me a letter of recommendation to producers at the CBC and I went up to Toronto. So I joined a workshop in Toronto with George Luscombe and with this letter I went to see the casting people at CBC TV.
Nick: We're talking what year here?
Sarrazin: About (19)63, 64,
Nick: And then you got the Hollywood contract and you became a studio actor?
Sarrazin: Yeah they had contacts in Toronto, they still had those talent programs then, where they signed people to seven year deals and they would also make a trip up to Toronto on scouting missions they'd go to Stratford and Toronto ....and they called me one day. I was living in this rooming house in Toronto and they called me from New York told me they wanted to talk to me first thing. I thought it was some friends playing a joke on me so I hung up on them and then I called back and the next thing you know I was in New York having a meeting with Universal studios and then they subsequently flew me to Los Angeles to look around at the studios and eventually I signed for 7 years.
Nick: That system doesn't work anymore.. where the studio signs an actor to a seven year deal and then they stick you into as many movies as they want, or can. What was your first Hollywood movie then?
Sarrazin: The first year, once they have you under contract you visit all the TV shows that they make you do a guest star. Of course your big fear is that they put you in a TV series.
Nick: Why? Is there a fear you get stuck in a series?
Sarrazin: Yeah you get stuck in a series, in those days it was all those Western and things like that.. yeah so I did a year, I guested on the Virginians there was show called Bob Hope Chrysler theatre, which was a dramatic show and a lot of Westerns in those days very popular, Universal Studios did B Westerns, I did a ton of those well maybe not a ton about 5 or 6 the first of which was called "Gunfight in Abeline" with Bobby Darin, remember the singer, he's a wonderful guy.
Nick: And did you get to like.. pull a gun and stuff?
Sarrazin: Yeah, yeah. It was done in 14 days. I think it was just an atrocious Western, it was a rehash of an old Western from the 1930s and I was afraid of horses, the usual story. It was just a disaster but I remember that as being my first feature.
Nick: You mentioned horses which oddly enough the film which brought you to prominence was They Shoot Horses Don't They in which you starred with Jane Fonda. How long after did you do that film?
Sarrazin: Well I signed with Universal in 1965. There was one big movie before it called "The Flim Flam Man" which I tested for and I won the role...and that got very good public response.
Nick: That was with George C. Scott, I recall you mention that working with George C. you learned a lot. He was a father figure of some sort?
Sarrazin: Yeah he's an extraordinary actor, he's still one of my favourites. He was exceptionally generous with me. I had heard rumours that he could be very temperamental, that he didn't suffer fools and stuff like that, but for some reason he took me under his wing and we got along really well and it played well for the film because it the story about a relationship between an older man and a young boy.
Nick: It was also comedy too, and you haven't done much comedy.
Sarrazin: Yes it was a comedy and it was very well received, I got very good critiques and that subsequently led to They Shoot Horses...
Nick: That was a depressing film, I mean you went from a comedy to this, you're talking about going from white to black. It was a pretty bleak picture about a bleak era, what was it like working on that film..bleak?
Sarrazin: Yes it was in fact. It was an intense, moving story. I think everyone involved in it was totally committed to it. It was almost as though we were living the parts and I have nothing but good memories of it, but we didn't party much. All of the cast was into the t in the dance marathons as a teenager and she wrote a good book about it, there is a great amount ofresearch material, plus, a lot of the cast, most of the principal players started a week early in rehearsal of experiencing staying up 24 hours a day, with a 10 minute break on the hour.
Nick: You weren't partying?
Sarrazin: Hah no! We actually went to the stage where the set was built, at Warner Brothers and played music and danced for 15 minutes and lay down for 10 and then danced for 15, and got used to all the sirens and the bells, all of the stuff that was in the movie, it was actually completely accurate.
Nick: You mean you lived it before you shot it.
Sarrazin: Yeah just to get the sense we went home at night, we didn't stay up for three months, but it was just to get a sense of what these people went through.
Nick: Then The Pursuit of Happiness which you didn't get with telling of that story.
Nick: A film like that seems depressing, actors read histories and biographies to get a feel for it, did you?
Sarrazin: Yeah we saw a lot of actual documentary footage about the dance marathons that did occur. We read some books on the subject, Olivia de Havilland, oddly enough washey shoot horses..
Sarrazin: No they only thing I remember about that was it was the first film I made after my contract with Universal ended, so I was making real money (laughs) as opposed to the little salary when you're under contract, the studio makes the money and you get a salary, so The Pursuit of Happiness with Barbara Hershey and Richard Mulligan, a very very good director, I didn't think the story was so good and it came and went, the public didn't catch on to it, it had a great title song by Randy Newman, that's all I remember about it..
Nick: We have some clippings of you from the Montreal Gazette and there is a photo of you in a bathtub with Barbra Streisand in For Pete's Sake. I mean not many of us get in a bathtub with her. What was it like working with a super vedette ?
Sarrazin: Great. Great we got along well, I liked her, I admired her tremendously, it was a lot of fun, it wasn't too demanding, because it was a nice light comedy. She is an extraordinary person, a lot of fun, a great sense of humour, we shot it on the lot because you can't go on the street with Barbra Streiseand, it starts a riot. So, it was a kind of light weight kinda movie, but the film
experience and meeting her it was a happy time.
Nick: She collects antiques..
Sarrazin: Yeah.
Nick: My mom has an antique coat racks, and every time you get to Montreal my mom asks me to get you to ask Barbra for a coat rack but it hasn't worked out. You get the impression that alot of the stars are bitchy in private.
Sarrazin: I can't measure that, I'm sure they are, and I've run into a few temperaments in my time and I suppose I have a temper in my own right, but generally speaking, they're nice people professional people, if you catch me on a bad day I won't be as agreeable as on a nice day
Nick: I also saw you in Playboy nude with Raquel Welch?
Sarrazin: No I don't think so..
Nick: Who was it?
Sarrazin: I didn't pose specifically for Playboy.
Nick: Yeah but who was it?
Sarrazin: I really don't remember.
Nick: It was kind of like a Tarzan thing.
Sarrazin: In those days there were obligatory nude scenes with the actress at which time all of the stills were either pirated or sold by the studio to Playboy and went around the world so everybody thinks I was having I mean they were just still photos taken during the course of your working day they always had a market value, Playboy ran that every year, "Sex in the cinema", I was in a number of years, with whom I can't recall.
Nick: You can't recall? Photographed in the nude with Racquel Welch and you can't remember?
Sarrazin: It couldn't have been her, I haven't worked with her.
Nick: Who was it? I would be able to remember!
Sarrazin: I'm getting old now and I have a girlfriend, I don't want to brag about these things.
Nick: I used to call you up to speak French with your old girlfriend Jacqueline Bisset.
Sarrazin: We made two films together.
Nick: What films?
Sarrazin: Some terrible bikini beach ball thing, called The Sweet Ride, it was kind of fun to make though it had a Canadian director Harvey Hart and then a few years later we made a serious film called Believe in Me about drug addiction.
Nick: There are a lot of Canadians working in Hollywood, writers and stuff and even reporters on TV, Peter Jennings, and others and as I recall in the American TV if you had a background at the CBC it was regarded as a big plus as well as the NFB, did being Canadian help
or hurt? 
Sarrazin: It helped the way I got my contract was the studios would actively recruit in plays and watch Canadian TV shows and they also had contacts in the industry, so when asked about anybody was interesting, they'd come up and look at your stuff. I thought the reason was because we were already acting, and working. Because once you're down in Hollywood, you're not there to train, you're there to do photographs and meet new agents and producers, there's
not much time to develop a background, whereas the time Universal spoke to me, I had been a professional actor for 8 years.
Nick: So your advice is if you want to become an actor, don't run away to Hollywood or New York become an actor where you are.
Sarrazin: Get a foundation. Form a commitment to it, experience the theatre. I think I did just about everything before I went exclusively into film. I had a taste of a little bit of everything, it gives you a background.
Nick: You did documentaries, radio, schlock stuff ?
Sarrazin: That's not schlock.
Nick: I know.. I know...but…
Sarrazin: Background, you don't know it at the time, but it's like a layer of experience, another coat of varnish to harden you, once you're down there the focus shifts, you go into a commercial high gear.
Nick: I remember meeting you doing Caravans in Iran a year before the Iranian revolution.
Sarrazin: Four months before!
Nick: Here you are with a big huge Hollywood production with the Western culture and values that the Iranian revolution was rejecting.
Sarrazin: We couldn't put our finger on it but we knew they didn't like us! Or a certain segment of the population didn't like us. It was hellish. It was a desert epic, and we were really out there in the desert, it difficult physically to work in film under those conditions, but it left a great impression on me, the culture, we were there five months, started in June and got out in December 77 and the real guns and firing began in February, March the following year, so 3, 4 months.
Nick: Who was that with?
Sarrazin: It was Anthony Quinn and Jennifer (O'Neill)... oh she'll kill me! She's a famous actress.
Nick: The one you were with in Playboy.
Sarrazin: Yes. yes! (laughs)
Nick: How we forget.
Sarrazin: Jennifer O'Neill! Sorry Jennifer!
Nick: You're talking George C. Scott and Anthony Quinn, two guys you've worked with, monuments of filmdom, you just go up and shake their hands and call him Tony?
Sarrazin: You just be yourself I guess, Quinn and I got along fine, I can't remember any film l've been in whe had a big personality problem with somebody. It's not my style.
Nick: Do you remain friends and see them afterwards?
Sarrazin: That's one of the sad things about films. The relationships are longish, 3, 4, 5 months they're very intense, because you're performing together, living together, sharing hardship together, plus you all have the same focus, trying to accomplish and make the best movie possible, you're very close, then suddenly someone says, "It's a wrap" and you're gone and you very rarely reconnect unless it's on another project and its never the same dynamic. 
Nick: So in the wrap party you say you'll stay in touch and then you don't?
Sarrazin: Yeah I have drawers full of addresses. Well you do run into some of the people again and it's always warm but the specialness of the event that brought you together is gone.
Nick: Train Killer.
Sarrazin: Train killer?
Nick: The Reincarnation of Peter Proud.
Sarrazin: I saw that!
Nick: That's one of those films that plays on late night TV again.
Sarrazin: It's very popular. I get stopped about it a lot. I did it with Margot Kidder and Jennifer O'Neill that's two films I did with her, it's all about reincarnation, contrary to those notes you have, it was a big hit at the time of its release, in proportion I mean, it wasn't Jurassic Park, but it made a good sum of money and it continues to be a favourite now in TV and video rentals.
Nick: Ever find yourself in a hotel room late at night and you turn on the TV and see yourself ?
Sarrazin: Yeah, my big fear is to be trapped on the airplane with one of my movies, because airplane movies are not very good and to be stuck 35,000 feet with some not-very-good movie that you're in it hasn't happened though.
Nick: Yeah I was in Florida last year it was about 3 in the morning I came in and turned on the TV and there you were.
Sarrazin: Well that's a sign of how old I'm getting because 10, 15 years ago I was like the Saturday 9 o'clock movie and I was like "Wow Hey" and now I get up in the middle of the night to do whatever and I'm on the 3 AM late show!
Nick: Well that makes you ubiquitous. Your face remains familiar continuously with all that stuff, do people recognize you wherever you are?
Sarrazin: Just about anywhere, or else people do a double take because you are out, and in their consciousness, don't forget these films play worldwide. I have a friend who just came back from Italy and saw me on the late show. I don't think about it, but you're face is slowly being burned in, you're part of the loop.
Nick: Right and you can't even remember who you are in Playboy nude with!
Sarrazin: Exactly.
Nick: You did a great film, it was an interesting story, which never came out, shot worked in Hungary over several months and it never came out.
Sarrazin: It's out on video.
Nick: In Hungary?
Sarrazin: (laughs) They changed the name to the Train Killer. To be perfectly honest with you, it just wasn't a very good film, it was a wonderful story, great director, done in 1982.
Nick: In Hungarian. How is your Hungarian?
Sarrazin: That was the funny part, it was the drawback, I was the only English-speaking person in the film everybody else was Hungarian
Nick: So they spoke their lines in Hungarian and what did you say?
Sarrazin: I said some English dialogue, it was kind of excruciating but I think the reason it didn't make the theatres was because it wasn't up to it. But now a lot of films are made these days and they don't really mind that it doesn't get a theatrical opening, they just go direct to video and there are a lot of sales there.
Nick: So now you are living in Beverly Hills on one of those canyon roads and you return here and the first thing you want isCote St. Luc barbecue chicken or smoked meat.
Sarrazin: Well if you're a Montrealer what else are you going to want? Yeah. I always come back 2, 3 times a year and curiously it's always for the stuff of my childhood
Nick: Michael Sarrazin is a product of Darcy McGee High School in downtown Montreal and take that Baron Byng High! `

Art Keinberger

 Arturo
Famous for his bar in Ibetha. Art had an afterhours club for awhile. He had a great restaurant on Adalaide.
Terrific Cook

Gord Rayner

I will Post a Story Here Soon

Handsome Ned

HANDSOME NED
Video

THE SECOND COMING OF THE KING OF QUEEN

BY MICHAEL HOLLETT

HANDSOME NED HAS AN UPCOMING MOVIE, A U.S. CD RELEASE AND NEW YOUNG FANS – BUT HE WON’T BE TOURING.
Handsome Ned is the last one into a blood-red Dodge van already stuffed with band members, girlfriends and gear. His ever-present Stetson isn’t dislodged in the scramble out of the Cameron House, and neither is his grin as he and his rockabilly punks head uptown to play Larry’s Hideaway. It’ll be the second of at least three full gigs across a handful of Toronto blocks on a night that won’t end until lunchtime tomorrow.
As guitar-playing driver Tony Kenny grinds the rusting ride into gear, Ned gathers his terrible teeth in a spectacular smile and beams out the van’s tiny side window like a Beatle looking out of a BOAC jet as it taxis toward the terminal across the JFK tarmac.


For almost five years in the early 80s, Handsome Ned was the King of Queen West. The smooth-voiced scenester used his hillbilly hokiness to hide an ambitious energy that was supposed to take his amazing talent to the top. A subtle but effective self-promoter and the man all local musicians wanted to impress, Ned had a plan – only he wasn’t supposed to die before it all worked out.
Handsome Ned inhabits that lonely, windblown place visited by Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, Gram Parsons and Kurt Cobain. He didn’t invent dying young and foolish, but he did help invent the Queen West arts and music scene out of a crumbling neighbourhood that was a thousand watts away from the chain-store-crammed promenade of today.
His heroin overdose 21 years ago tonight (January 10) did more to change forever the emerging artistry on that strip than any national-brand bivouac ever could.

Diane Roblin

I will Post a Story Here Soon

Jane Vasey