Susan Walker, former editor of Quill and Quire, who also served as the Toronto Star’s book editor, and no slouch when it comes to all things literary, has written a wonderful piece about how my new novel (with Prudence Emery),…
Blog Archives
Evolution of a Novel: How Death at the Savoy Came to Be
Tagged with: Death at the Savoy, Douglas & McIntyre, Nanaimo Girl, Prudence Emery, Quill and Quire, Ron Base, Susan Walker, The Sanibel Sunset Detective, Toronto Star
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PETERTHE GREAT: REMEMBERING PETER GODDARD
Not only was Peter Goddard for many years Canada’s pre-eminent music critic, he was also a dear friend who I admired tremendously. Peter had been fighting cancer for the past year or so. True to his contrary nature, he refused…
Tagged with: Peter Goddard, The Toronto Telegram, Toronto Globe and Mail, Toronto Star
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Baby, The Rain Must Fall: Remembering Glenn Yarbrough
The singer Glenn Yarbrough died in August at the age of eighty-six after suffering from dementia for years. His voice and his songs were such a pivotal influence on my adolescence, I can’t imagine how I missed the news of…
Tagged with: Baby The Rain Must Fall, Everly Brothers, Glenn Yarbrough, Lee Remick, Ottawa Journal, Rod McKuen, Rose, Stanyan Street, Steve McQueen, The Limeliters, The Warm and Gentle Girls, Toronto Star
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How I Didn’t Host Canada AM and Saved Canadian Television
No sooner had I escaped the clutches of the Toronto Star than a producer at Canada AM, the CTV network’s long-running version of America’s Today Show, phoned to ask if I would be interested in becoming one of the hosts.…
Tagged with: Canada AM, CFTO, Charles Templeton, Craig Oliver, CTV, Helen Hutchinson, Irish Rovers, Norm Perry, Patrick Watson, Pierre Berton, Ross MacLean, Toronto Star
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Cannes, El Sid, and Six Green Beans
Every year about this time I think of Cannes, El Sid, and six green beans. El Sid was my nick-name for Sid Adilman, the legendary Toronto Star entertainment reporter. For years in May, El Sid and I would head for the…
Tagged with: Afred Hitchcock, Cannes, Cary Grant, Chet Baker, Cote d'Azur, France, Gore Vidal, Grace Kelly, Hotel Carlton, Hotel du Cap, Malcolm McDowell, Mary Steenburgen, Moulin des Mougins, Norman Mailer, Paul Newman, Riviera, Sid Adilman, Terry Jones, To Catch A Thief, Toronto Star, Toronto Telegram
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Don Francks: A Star Was Born Again, and Again–and Again
When I finally met Don Francks it was on the set of a movie I wrote titled First Degree. Not that I had much influence, but as one of the producers, I lobbied hard to cast Don in the role…
Hello Sweetheart…Get Me Val Sears
Hello, sweetheart. Yeah, get me rewrite will you? One of the giants has fallen, Val Sears, a newspaper legend out of a time of newspaper legends. Whaddya mean you don’t know who Val Sears is. Val wrote features and covered…
Tagged with: Cary Grant, Joe Clark, John Diefenbaker, Ottawa, Press Gallery, Progressive Conservative Party, Tom Cossitt, Tornto Telegram, Toronto Star, Val Sears
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I Should Have Known Better: The Wildly Improbable Story of Heavenly Bodies
Last weekend, at the Canadian Film Centre’s annual barbecue in Toronto, I ran into a couple of old friends who, although they didn’t realize it, were unique among the more than two thousand industry types flowing through the old E.P.…
Tagged with: Broadway, Clark Gable, Cynthia Dale, Don Simpson, Doug Taylor, Entertainment Tonight, Flashdance, Giorgio Moroder, Heavenly Bodies, Jerry Bruckheimer, Judy Garland, Lawrence Dane, Leonard Maltin, MGM, musical, Playboy, Robert Lantos, Species, Stephen Roth, The Canadian Film Centre, TIFF, Tom Hedley, Toronto International Film Festival, Toronto Star
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Shooting The Wounded
Critics, it is said, come down from the hills after the battle is over and shoot the wounded. For the better part of the 1980s, I shot the wounded as the movie critic for The Toronto Star, Canada’s largest circulation newspaper. Even…
Tagged with: Bonnie and Clyde, Clyde Gilmour, Jaws, Jay Scott, Kenneth Tynan, Marin Scorsese, Pauline Kael, Raging Bull, Steven Spielberg, Toronto Star, Toronto Telegram
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Ron Base Writes 