Posts with the Spanish Civil War tag

Barris Beat

The education of Ted Barris

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
Canada’s 10th Father of Confederation, Joseph R. Smallwood. Historica.

He was the only source I’ve ever interviewed who intimidated me. And it wasn’t his personality or his manner that scared me. In fact, he proved to be among the most gracious, easy-going people I’ve ever interviewed. We met over the telephone back in the winter of 1976, and I began our conversation very formally, addressing him as “Mister.” And he immediately broke the ice with his first response.

“Please. Call me Joey,” he said. “Everybody does.”

“Thank you, Joey,” I responded, and I began my first and only interview with a Father of Confederation, the then recently retired premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Joseph R. Smallwood. (more…)

Barris Beat

From isolation can come greatness

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Composer Viktor Ullmann, imprisoned but not silenced.

Imagine a curfew keeping you inside your home. You can. Imagine quarantine as if it were imprisonment. You can. Then, imagine coming up with a unique way to deal with your isolation by turning to one of your life skills. I imagine that you can do that too.

That’s what Victor Ullmann did, in 1942. Imprisoned at a place called Terezin, a concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Bohemia, Ullmann, a music composer by profession, wrote an opera inside the prison depicting his predicament. It was called The Emperor of Atlantis.

“It’s a (musical) parable about a mad, murderous ruler,” wrote a reviewer years later, “who proclaims universal war.” (more…)

Barris Beat

The good, the bad and the ugly of Celebrity

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Phil Kessel had no intentions of promoting his visit to Toronto Sick Kids Hospital with the Stanley Cup, but hospital staff tweeted out pictures and praise.
Phil Kessel had no intentions of promoting his visit to Toronto Sick Kids Hospital with the Stanley Cup, but hospital staff tweeted out pictures and praise.

He wore a baseball cap that had no team emblem and a T-shirt with no sign of his number 81 on it. He smiled for several of the private photographs taken that day; and that was a bit out of the ordinary. Otherwise his visit to Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children went unnoticed even when he opened up a case and revealed – for the children and staff at the hospital only – the Stanley Cup, the one he and his fellow Pittsburgh Penguins had won last spring. And his visit would have gone unnoticed, but for a hospital staffer who tweeted:

“SickKids was buzzing with #StanleyCup fever today! Thx for visiting our patients & families @PKessel81 #NHL.” (more…)