So now I knew for certain that I could ride this acting animal – promised to me by some early unknown force – to some sort of recognition in a world larger than Grand Falls. A way out, or in, where I might find others like myself. It was very personal. And I was so sure I owed something to this promise that I would stay with it ’til it was accomplished, however unstable and far-reaching it proved to be.
Inside, I might have been a nobody. Outside, I was everybody! If ever the two came together, I’d be a somebody!
* From Gander! Gander! by Gordon Pinsent.
leaving home
How does it feel when the rock was here?
How is it that we can’t get there now?
What did you do to it, or they?
What happened to it, yesterday?
How did you know how to last till then
and not know how to last till now?*
DID I MENTION THAT I CAME TO NORTH AMERICA from a foreign land?
Newfoundland, the exotic country I grew up in, was once a sovereign state – an independent dominion of hearty, colourful, and decidedly independent souls adrift in the Atlantic.
What can I tell you of my lovely, lonely island that hasn’t already been sung? Most of our history, dating back to the Viking settlements of AD 1000, has been set to music by one troubadour or another. And we’ve produced some great ones – Ron Hynes, Alan Doyle and Great Big Sea, Figgy Duff, Neil Bishop and The Gig – and continue to do so.
We were a British colony at one time, before we gained our independence; but the Depression took such a toll on us that we voted to become a British colony again. And then, in 1940, with World War II raging around us, Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as partners in defence, decided that Newfoundland would be the key British naval base in the Atlantic. The Yanks poured in, and we were reasonably prosperous again. After the war we thought we’d have to decide who to go with – the U.S. or Britain – until Canada made us an offer we (and by “we” I mean some of us) couldn’t refuse.*
The Rock was beautiful to us long before Newfoundland & Labrador Tourism discovered it. Nobody ever truly wanted to leave. Well, nobody our family knew. But one day, after a whole lot of dreaming, and after receiving a decent-sized cigarette butt from a mill worker, I knew it was time to go. My feet knew it. My mind knew it. I had an energy that didn’t seem to fit with the idea of staying. That energy had to get out, somehow, somewhere. It had to be unleashed. How far it would take me I didn’t know, but somehow I had to find a way, and I walked through the town to the end of my indecision.
Next, I needed a single paycheque, a prerequisite for emigrating to Canada. Oh yes, and X-rays. This was the latter part of 1948, after all, and not ’til the following April would we be able to call ourselves Canadian. By the time I left home, Harry was back from the war and had already taken over the family reins. And all three sisters had been married in the last two years of the war. As I mentioned before, Hazel had married Cecil Bishop, and they were living in Gander. My sister Nita had married a taxi driver, Les Knight. Lilith’s husband, Ron Smith, worked at the paper mill and was also involved in the union. And my brother Haig had worked in the paper mill until he was old enough to leave home, and then ended up in the Air Force.
In August 1948, after all the fond farewells, I took The Bullet across the island to Port aux Basques to board the passenger ship for my first visit to Canada. Yes, The Bullet. In those days we still had our own railway. We called it The Bullet. People on bikes used to pass it. You could walk across the island faster. And if you took it from one side of the island to the other, you were bound to have a couple of birthdays along the way. So it was not the fastest way to get somewhere. But it was our way.
On the crossing to Canada on the wave-churned Cabot Strait I decided to hang out with a small group of seasoned party animals who were far more fluent in screech than I was. By the time the ship docked in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, I wasn’t young anymore. And Canada, much to my chagrin, appeared to be little more than a customs shed.
“Wanna see me X-rays?” I asked the surly customs official who collared me.
“No, I want to see $250, which is what you’re supposed to have if you intend to stay here.”
I didn’t have $250 on me that very second.
My pocket jangled with the princely sum of thirteen cents.
So, I performed.
And, I performed well. I performed a stage-worthy soliloquy of youthful helplessness, immigrant ignorance, and abject sadness, with a proper pinch of vulnerability. I insisted that my lack of funds could hardly constitute a relevant issue as I was bound to be hired by eager employers as soon as I set foot on the main street. And I am proud to report that I pleaded my fragile case so successfully that my once-grumpy interrogator summoned the nurse to look me over. (Politicians would kill for that sincerity.)
The Canadian customs official told me to put away my thirteen cents and my spare set of shoelaces. They would let me into the country provided I stay in Sydney until they could verify, in three days’ time, that I indeed had a job, and that I would not be a drain on Canada’s financial resources.
Three customs officials – three! – showed up to check on me three days later. I was mixing and pouring cement into newly constructed frames inside a corner store, and when I saw them coming, I smeared my face with cement, just to add a touch of drama. The closer they got, the harder I appeared to be working. Shovelling, mixing, scooping, shovelling, mixing, scooping. They were suitably impressed, and expressed the hope that I would continue to labour in this noble profession.
“Oh yes, I loves it!” I assured them. “I’m nutting without a pick and shovel! Can’t see meself ever doing anyting else!”
They left.
I quit the job I never had.
I snagged a few short-term jobs, a string of them, and inched my way to Toronto, province by province. A tough potato-picking engagement in Prince Edward Island was followed by equally unfortunate employment gigs in New Brunswick. I broke my hand hauling ice blocks, broke my back picking spuds, and broke my toe in bridge construction.
Was I worried? Of course not. I was eighteen.
Besides, Herbert Marshall had lost a leg in World War I and had walked through one hundred movies without anyone catching on. So broken toe be damned. I just kept plugging away until I got the price of a one-way CNR second-class ticket to Toronto. And got robbed of that by a bum who said, “You’re a bum like me, except you’re a young bum!” I never forgot that.
By the time I finally arrived at Union Station in Toronto I had only three cents in my pocket. And eyes the size of saucers when I came out of the station and saw, right in front of me, the second-tallest building in the British Commonwealth, the Royal York Hotel. (It didn’t take all that much to amaze us back then.)
Biggest news of the day was the escape of the Boyd Gang – their second successful unauthorized exit from Toronto’s sinister-looking Don Jail. Lorne Greene was doing live updates on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s brand-new Canadian television network. Mesmerizing.
Over the next two months – September and October – I had at least six jobs, all of them short-lived. I suppose the mistake my employers made was to give anyone as sensitive as an aspiring thespian a job. And I say that with no regrets. Although I still had a personal wish list, I confess that a desire to excel at making Dixie cups, distributing free soap samples, wrapping crystal at Sears, painting signs, and insulating houses was not on it.
What I lacked in skill I made up for in confidence – totally unjustified, of course. But I had cleats on my boots, and in those days if you could walk around and be heard … well, I thought I was the smartest thing ever, and brought those boots into every office I went to. Including the employment agencies.
“All right,” said one interviewer, “what do you want to do?”
“I’m an actor,” I said. (Bald-faced lie. But, still …)
“An actor,” he said. “Well, what
did you do before that?”
“I was a shepherd,” I said.
“Well,” he said, “there are not too many sheep in Toronto.”
“Well then,” I said, “you’re going to have to get me work as an actor!”
I was at that time happy to call myself an Actor. Not that anyone else did. But if you’d had time to study me for a moment longer than “hello” I might have reminded you of someone from the big screen. Almost anyone from the big screen; if I saw that I didn’t strike you engagingly in the first moment, I’d get you at next glance. Tragedy. Comedy. The whole map of human behaviour was right there, and would fit whatever moment in your good or bad hair day you’d require.
Plus – did I mention that I was just eighteen? – I was enchanted by Toronto’s glamorous nightlife. First night in the big city. The Silver Rail, the Brown Derby, Club Kingsway; mickies under the table, with still enough shine in an old jacket for copying Frankie Laine, hard at “Jezebel” on Toronto’s ticket. Afterwards, for one who hadn’t come with one, or left with one, you found yourself in the shadow life of the different Toronto the Good. And if you weren’t interested in maturing right away, you could make a lot of those nights in Toronto shadows, which may or may not have had moving people in ’em, Shapes only, when the world turned seamless amber, and you were at a place where no one knew you and you didn’t get sent home. No questions asked. You were inside now, on a doubtful set of stairs, not having left a clue behind you; and something would be waiting for you that you hadn’t met before, and you wouldn’t have to take it with you. It would stay. Then, cracked lips from nowhere brushed yours with the music of the moment. No flattery here. You didn’t ask to be remembered, and you had just enough youth on your face to undo the eyes of a forgotten fiancée, taking her sadness out on a tired and uninterested candle. And at the Casino, Lili St. Cyr, she of the bathtub, and Sally Rand, she of the giant balloons. Be still, my boyish heart! (Not to mention my nether regions.) I was informed later that Sally had been older than the theatre on the day I saw her. Regardless, a lot of young Canadians grew up watching Sally, and a lot of old men didn’t get home in time. And who could forget Chuck Gregory & His Dancing Girls, whose pulchritudinous ranks included the lovely and talented Kitty Kat McDonald, wife of U.S. mobster Mickey McDonald, who was right up there on the public enemies list. And Chuck always introduced his Dancing Girls with a hit tune of the day:
Little girl …
This big ol’ world will be divine
When you’re mine, little girl, all mine
The Casino on Queen Street West showcased such formidable talents as Bill Daniels, Rosemary Clooney, Sammy Davis Jr., the Four Lads, Patti Page and Josh White, and would be torn down to make way for the Sheraton Centre opposite Toronto’s “new” City Hall. The Victory Burlesque Theatre dominated Spadina Road for three decades.*
On nights like these I gained an invaluable insight about who I was becoming: I loved being in the audience. I loved being in the moment. At times I wondered which side of the stage I should be on. And even then the answer seemed inevitable. Both sides, Porky. Both sides.
* From “How Was It When the Rock Was Born,” by Gordon Pinsent.
* An older generation who considered isolation a winning way of life still regard Confederation as the day Canada joined Newfoundland.
* Years later I would attend a dinner at the Canadian Consulate in Beijing. Sitting across from me was Sir Run Run Shaw, the Hong Kong movie mogul who ran a huge movie empire but was arguably more famous for letting Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan slip through his fingers. And he said, “You are from Toronto? Really? … how is The Victory doing?” Apparently he owned it.
jump
BY LATE AUTUMN, TWO MONTHS AFTER MY UNHERALDED arrival in Toronto, I had yet to be hired as an actor.
Incredible! you say. I agree. Incredible. And yet, strange as it may sound, the people in Toronto who were in the business of hiring actors seemed to want actors with at least some credentials, credits, or experience – none of which, due to various twists of fate, I had gotten around to acquiring.
So I joined the Army instead.
Okay, that’s not entirely true. I joined the Army for a number of reasons, mostly because I was homesick. Frankly, I was caught off guard and confused by this thing called freedom. It felt odd, even uncomfortable, to be able to do whatever I pleased without anyone’s permission.
Harry Thomas, my oldest brother, had gone off to war and come home a hero. Everyone thought the world of Harry, and I wanted everyone to think the world of me too. So I joined the Canadian infantry on November 12, 1948 – peacetime army, of course; no sense getting shot up, I might lose something I was going to need later on – and for the next three years would seldom, if ever, get to do what I pleased without first getting permission from the Royal Canadian Regiment.
This was me. Played convincingly by me. Late teens, I was a patch job where character was concerned. Living on half an alphabet. Fragmented to where it wasn’t altogether too rewarding to share my company for longer than a hyphen. You’d feel the need to excuse yourself and hurry back to your common sense. That is, if you were serious about anything.
At the completion of our basic training in Ontario at Camp Borden in the late forties, we had been given the option of being assigned to our choice of regiment. At that time there were three. It was only for me to make the choice: the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI); the Royal Canadian Regiment; or the Royal 22nd Regiment (the Van Doos of French Canada). I chose to go to the Van Doos. Did I speak French? No. Did I ever have a real sit-down with a person of French descent? No. It must have been because I liked their hat badge. Oh yes. Hat badge. You’d be amazed at how much attention that could bring you, when walking the streets of a given army town on a weekend pass, say. The Van Doo badge in particular stood out in bas-relief, and looked great buffed to all heaven, beaver and all. And of course their tricoloured shoulder flashes. Now, with the shoulder flashes sewn on and the hat badge attached, I fairly tickled myself into waiting for the first Van Doo to come and address me in French. Not as a gag; I seriously wanted to be addressed in French. This didn’t happen that I recall. Don’t know why. They could easily have taken me for French, with the name Pinsent. As in Pan-son. But non. What would I have done? It seems I knew I was stupid but didn’t take the results as seriously as the beauty of the initial experience. Plus, you may wonder, didn’t I realize that by volunteering to join the Van Doos, I’d have to go to one of their bases: St. Jean, or Valcartier? Of course I didn’t! So then I was allowed to swing over to the Royal Canadian Regiment while they would still have me.
I was stationed at Camp Borden for a while, and then Petawawa, and hitchhiked to Toronto on precious weekend furloughs. That is, if and when some kindly motorist would pick me up. After the war it seemed as if the colour khaki no longer registered, and I soon concluded that no one in the history of the armed forces was as unimportant in the eyes of civilians as the peacetime soldier.
Back at the camp I wondered if the First Battalion might be sent to Korea. But we were an airborne regiment, so the popular assumption going around was that the government had invested too much in our paratroop training to use us as infantry.
Being a member of an airborne regiment presented its own special challenges. I was not, to put it mildly, a natural jumper. On my first flight I was the last one out of the plane. At least, I was the last in line to jump. Everyone else had gone. So I left my foot inside the door, just in case. And I changed the direction of my hand. I had at first positioned my hand outside the door, to help push me forward. But I decided instead to bring my hand back inside the door, where I could stay and be warm. So the plane carried on, and other people were landing on the ground now, and I was still up at the door of the plane, spread out against the fuselage like an insignia. And I started to talk to myself again, as I always did. And I thought, Could I land like this? I wonder if I could land like this. Just slide off the plane, literally
, after it landed.
Despite that nagging question I would soon experience the knee-cracking mock tower, the gut-knotting high tower, the smack of the raw propeller blast upon exiting the plane, the piss-making jump, and the bone-jarring coming to earth. These were not experiences I willingly embraced. I really didn’t so much jump as get too close to the exit not to go. And I did this on as few occasions as I could get away with, doggedly unwilling to risk life and limb for such a small audience.
Posing a far greater risk to my personal life and limbs was the fact that my comrades in arms were by and large seasoned barroom brawlers – and I was not. Oh, I could hold my own for a while in mano-a-mano scuffles with fellow privates, but never long enough to finish. So I had to find a way to make myself indispensable to the guys in my regiment, and concluded that they would regard me as invaluable if I shared my special talent with them.
No, not acting. Opening beers with my teeth.
Did I mention that I was eighteen?
Opening bottle caps with my teeth was my version of having muscles. Don’t mess with me, buddy, I crack beers with my bicuspids. Blessed with one particularly strong lower bicuspid, I cracked those beers with style and panache, to the delight of my potential head-bashers. Unfortunately the tooth gave out before the Molsons did, so I had to fall back on my next talent – sketching. Get out the old pad and pencil and whip up some flattering sketches of the guys who looked Most Likely to Punch You Out. When that gambit grew old hat, I switched to letter writing. Clearly a Cyrano ahead of my time, I’d compose love letters for the boys to send off to their girls, and in no time they were lining up around the dorm.
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