The Canadians of Show Biz

Today is Canada Day! So here’s a little shout out for all the vaudevillians and other performers from Canada we have written about on Travalanche.  Just click on the name to get the full article about the artist.

Canadian vaudevillians and early theatrical figures included Marie Dressler, May Irwin, Gertrude Hoffman, Beatrice Lillie, Eva Tanguay, Ben Blue,Fifi D’Orsay, James Doyle (of Doyle and Dixon), Vernon Castle, Ned Sparks,Walter Huston, Lt. Gitz Rice,McKee Rankin,Clara Morris, Henry Burr, Donald Brian, Cecil Lean, and Jimi Hendrix’s grandparents! 

P.T. Barnum’s giantess Anna Swan was from Canada, as were the Dionne Quintuplets, circus impresario Al G. Barnes, and circus composer Arthur W. Hughes.

Movie people include Mack Sennett, Sidney Olcott, Mary Pickford, Marie Prevost, Fay Wray, Florence Lawrence, Ruby Keeler, Dell Henderson, Del Lord , Peggy Cartwright,Douglas Dumbrille, Norman Jewison, and Donald Sutherland,

Canadian TV people we have written about have included William Shatner,Wayne and Shuster, Art Linkletter, Don Harron, Gordie Tapp, Robert MacNeil,Sid and Marty Krofft, Doug Henning, David Steinberg, Alan Thicke,Lorne Michaels,Dan Aykroyd,Peter Aykroyd,Gilda Radner,Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Joe Flaherty,Andrea Martin,Rick Moranis, Mike Myers,John Candy,Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Tony Rosato, Robin Duke, Valri Bromfield. and Saul Rubinek. Some favorite Canadian shows have included SCTVand Slings and Arrows. 

Some musical people: Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians.Gisele MacKenzie,Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot,Buffy St. Marie, and Leonard Cohen. 

Both Dorothy Stratten and Pamela Anderson came from Western Canada.

Let us not forget poet of the frozen north Robert W. Service!

And above all perhaps, the person you’re least likely to know, but perhaps the most important one of all: media theorist, economist, and philosopher Harold Innis. 

And more to come, no doot! Canadians, I raise a Labatt’s in your honor!

, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold. And don’t miss my new book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, just released by Bear Manor Media, also available from amazon.com etc etc etc