MIRVISH o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-06-27 published
His calling was behind the scenes
By James McCREADY
Special to The Globe and Mail Friday, June
27, 2003 - Page R9
Toronto -- Jimmy
FULLER's first job in the theatre was playing
Julius Caesar at the Royal Alex in Toronto. Odd for a teenage
boy with no acting experience. But he played the post-Ides of
March Julius Caesar, lying dead in a coffin on the stage, a part
no actor wanted to perform.
His father was a business agent for the stage union the International
Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, and he wangled the job
for the boy. Jimmy
FULLER went into his father's trade. He was
a member of International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees
for 54 years and was president of Local 58 for 36 years, until
just before his death on May 22 at the age of 82.
Jimmy FULLER worked as an electrician at Toronto's O'Keefe Centre
for the opening performance of Camelot in 1960. He stayed there
for more than 30 years, as chief electrician for the theatre,
which in time changed its name to the Hummingbird Centre.
A union leader, he was also an entrepreneur. In 1976, he started
his own company, Canadian Staging Projects, which rented stage
equipment. It was successful, and he continued as president until
the 1990s. During that time, he also worked in many productions
and negotiated contracts with the likes of theatre owner Ed
MIRVISH
and impresario Garth
DRABINSKY.
The 350 members of Local 58 work behind the scenes in live theatre
in Toronto. They are the stagehands and electricians for everything
from the Royal Alex to the Canadian National Exhibition. Jimmy
FULLER was so enthusiastic about live theatre he would sometimes
invest in the shows themselves. Some were small productions,
but his most successful flutter was in the musical Cats.
James Charles
FULLER was born in Toronto on October 31, 1920.
He went to Runnymede Public School and then followed the family
trade, qualifying as an electrician after studying at Western
Tech high school. One of his first jobs, apart from playing the
dead Julius Caesar, was at a movie theatre, the Runnymede Odeon,
starting as an usher.
In 1941, he joined the army and when they discovered his stage
talent he was put to work as part of the crew for the Army Show.
He was involved with staging productions, and the one he remembered
in particular was with the Canadian comedy team, Wayne and Shuster
Just before the end of the war he was sent to British Columbia
for more serious wartime work: wiring minesweepers, which were
essentially wooden ships that used electrical signals to detect
mines. He was back in Toronto just before the end of the war,
working in his old trade as an electrician at the Odeon.
In 1950, he started J. Fuller Lighting Ltd., a freelance theatrical
lighting business. It was around that time that he became a business
agent for the Toronto Local 58 of International Alliance of Theatrical
Stage Employees. At the end of that decade he became the head
electrician for the O'Keefe Centre and stayed on there until
But it wasn't as if that were his only job. Along with running
his own company, he was running the union, negotiating contracts
with local theatre owners, in particular the Mirvishes.
"Jimmy was labour and I was management. We fought one another
tooth and nail for 30 years. We should have been the bitterest
of enemies," Mr.
MIRVISH said in a statement issued on Mr.
FULLER's
death. "We actually became the best of Friends."
He travelled with many shows, working with the Charlottetown
Festival and the military Tattoo. He also worked closely with
the Canadian Opera Company and was himself a fan of the opera.
Jimmy FULLER led a quiet home life and his family said that once
he was home he never talked business. He leaves his wife, Eleanor,
to whom he had been married for 58 years, and his daughter Susan.
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MIRVISH o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-12-04 published
A painter of real people
Toronto artist sought to get beneath a subject's veneer to achieve
a 'luminous presence'
By Allison
LAWLOR,
Special to The Globe and Mail Thursday, December
4, 2003 - Page R11
'She'll paint you the way she wants," David
MIRVISH, patron and
art collector, once said of the Canadian portrait painter Lynn
DONOGHUE.
"She's sensitive to mood," Mr.
MIRVISH, who sat for Ms.
DONOGHUE
on several occasions, told The Financial Post Magazine in 1984.
"She may catch you at a different angle, and not every subject
feels that's the way they want to be seen. The important thing
is whether it's a successful picture or not. You shouldn't expect
to like a portrait."
But what you could expect if you were having your portrait painted
by Ms. DONOGHUE is that you would at the very least enjoy the
process. Sitting for the Toronto-based painter was like having
tea with a lively, old friend.
"You were always chatting about this and that with Lynn," said
Father Daniel
DONOVAN, an art collector and professor of theology
at St. Michael's College in the University of Toronto, who also
sat for Ms.
DONOGHUE. "
She was always vibrant and alive."
Always seeking to get beyond a person's veneer, Ms.
DONOGHUE
enjoyed the process of trying to draw out her subjects. "She
wanted people to [be] open and communicate with her," Father
DONOVAN said.
Mr. DONOGHUE, considered one of the pre-eminent portrait painters
in Canada, died last month in Toronto. She was 50.
"She made a huge impact [in the Canadian art world] and did so
at a very young age," said Christian Cardell
CORBET, founder
of the Canadian Portrait Academy.
"She was at a stage... where she was just about to take off,"
Mr. CORBET said. "What she could have contributed was just cut
short."
Ms. DONOGHUE started showing her work in 1973. Her early work
caused a stir when some galleries refused to show her giant portraits
of naked males. Since then she has had countless group shows
and solo exhibitions. Her work can be found in the Art Gallery
of Ontario, the Ontario Legislature, the National Museum of Botswana,
the Vancouver Art Gallery, and several other private and public
collections.
Ms. DONOGHUE, who was elected a member of the Royal Canadian
Academy of Arts in 1991, did both commissioned and non-commissioned
portraits. One of her notable commissions was of John
STOKES,
the former speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
Last year, Ms.
DONOGHUE completed a portrait of Margaret
ATWOOD
that came was at once celebrated. After approaching the Canadian
literary icon to paint her portrait, Ms.
DONOGHUE set about to
capture Ms.
ATWOOD using bright oil colours. In the portrait,
Ms. ATWOOD, sits with her legs crossed and looks out at the viewer
wearing a vibrant, green shirt.
"She was not afraid of colour," Mr.
CORBET said. "She would take
it [paint] right from the tube."
Three years ago, Terrence
HEATH, the former director of the Winnipeg
Art Gallery, wrote in BorderCrossings following an exhibition
of Ms. DONOGHUE's work at a Toronto gallery: "Each painting...
is a statement in colour. The figures are set in colour fields
that tell you as much about the figure as the likeness and body
position do. Most remarkable about these paintings is their sheer
luminous presence."
"She created honest portraits" and "didn't follow much of a systematic
approach to portraiture," Mr.
CORBET said. "She allowed her spontaneity
and intuition to come through."
Ms. DONOGHUE once said that her historic mentors, such as Frans
Hals, conveyed in their portraits the feeling of people who are
very alive. "Why do people know, when they look at a painting
of mine, that it is a real person?" she told The Financial Post
Magazine in 1984. It was one of her perpetual queries into the
nature of portrait painting.
Lynn DONOGHUE was born on April 20, 1953, in the small community
of Red Lake in northern Ontario, more than 500 kilometres from
Thunder
Bay.
Her father Graham
DONOGHUE was a mining engineer
who moved his family about, including a spell in Newfoundland.
Ms. DONOGHUE finished high school at H.B. Beal Secondary School
in London, Ontario She graduated in 1972 with a special art diploma.
Having lived in England and New York as an artist, Toronto was
home to Ms.
DONOGHUE.
She lived with her 14-year-old son Luca
in a loft in a converted industrial building in the city's west
end. Her loft doubled as her studio. In the cluttered space,
some of her paintings hung on the walls and canvases were stacked
next to the essentials required for daily living. Living off
the sale of her paintings, Ms.
DONOGHUE financially scrapped
by month to month, her Friends said.
Described as vivacious and gregarious, she was "the life of the
party." An active member of the arts community, she could regularly
be seen at gallery openings and art shows around Toronto. Outside
the art world, she was an active community member. Most recently
she helped to organize events for Toronto's new mayor David
MILLER
during the municipal election. She also attended the Anglican
Church of Saint Mary Magdalene, where a painting she had done of
her son's baptism hung on the wall.
An exhibit of Ms.
DONOGHUE's most recent major work is scheduled
to open at the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, Ontario, in March.
Called the The Last Supper, the large group piece, which Ms.
DONOGHUE started in 2001, consists of 13 portraits encircling
a central table piece, which is itself a triptych. The installation
requires a total wall space of about 5 metres by 10 metres (16
feet by 34 feet).
Father DONOVAN well remembers how he first learned of the project.
One day, he received a call from Ms.
DONOGHUE asking if he would
have lunch with her. She had an idea she wanted to talk to him
about. The idea turned out to be the The Last Supper and Ms.
DONOGHUE said she needed his help. After their lunch, she invited
Father DONOVAN, along with several others, to dinner. While they
were eating and drinking, she photographed them, capturing their
mannerisms and expressions. From the photographs, she made a
series of sketches which she then used to develop the large group
piece.
"She loved what she was doing," Mr.
CORBET said. "There was this
inner drive that said 'go on.' "
Ms. DONOGHUE, an insulin-dependent diabetic, died on November
22 in a Toronto hospital, after suffering from an insulin reaction
that led to a coma.
She leaves her parents Marjorie and Graham
DONOGHUE, her son
Luca LANGIANO and his father, Domenico
LANGIANO and sister Barbara
VAVALIDIS.
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MIRVISH o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-12-12 published
A sleeping tiger of baseball
Founded in 1914, the Asahi team made history. This year, largely
because of the efforts of its catcher, the team made the Canadian
Baseball Hall of Fame
By Tom HAWTHORN,
Special to The Globe and Mail Friday, December
12, 2003 - Page R17
Victoria -- Ken
KUTSUKAKE was a catcher for the storied Asahi
baseball team of Vancouver, which disbanded when its Japanese-Canadian
players were interned during the Second World War.
Mr. KUTSUKAKE, who has died in Toronto, aged 92, helped keep
the team's memory alive over the years. He organized an Asahi
reunion at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Don Mills,
Ontario, in 1972, ending, if only temporarily, a diaspora of
the diamond that had seen players sent to work camps, ghost towns,
sugar-beet farms, and, in a handful of cases, Japan.
Earlier this year, the amateur club was inducted into the Canadian
Baseball
Hall of Fame in Saint Marys, Ontario Mr.
KUTSUKAKE attended
the ceremonies in June, even taking part in a golf tournament.
The
Asahi roster shortens with each passing season. Mr.
KUTSUKAKE
is the third player to die since the induction. He was predeceased
by outfielder Bob
HIGUCHI, 95, of Pickering, Ontario, and pitcher
George YOSHINAKA, 81, of Lethbridge, Alberta. The Asahi are disappearing
like runners left stranded at the end of an inning. Only six
players and a team official are believed to still be alive, the
lone survivors as the club approaches the 90th anniversary of
its founding in 1914.
The Asahi drew their players from the Little Tokyo neighbourhood
surrounding their home field at the Powell Street Grounds (today's
Oppenheimer Park) in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The Asahi
were physically slight compared to their opponents, among whom
were beefy longshoremen, so they depended on slick fielding,
larcenous base running and hitting so precise that it was said
they could bunt with a chopstick. They were nimble Davids competing
against slugging Goliaths.
The team (asa for morning, hi for sun) sometimes won games in
which they failed to record a hit. Their style of play, which
came to be called Brain Ball, earned them a following among discerning
Caucasian fans. In Little Tokyo, they were gods in woolen flannels.
"We were the toast of the town," Mr.
KUTSUKAKE told me earlier
this year. "To be an Asahi ballplayer meant lots to a lot of
people."
It all ended so quickly. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, it was
heard around the world. In British Columbia, all people of Japanese
ancestry were ordered removed from the coast as enemy aliens.
A neighbourhood team lost its neighbourhood and the Asahi never
played again.
Kenneth Hisao
KUTSUKAKE was born in Vancouver on May 25, 1911.
The Asahi had deep roots in the community and he joined the club's
youth team when he was 12 as a Clover (Go-gun). Blessed with
a strong throwing arm even at that young age, he was taught to
play the sport's toughest position. The neighbourhood boys gave
him the sing-song nickname, "Catcha-Catcha-
KUTSUKAKE."
He moved up the Asahi ranks over the years. From 9-to-5, Mr.
KUTSUKAKE worked for a company making boxes. After work and on
weekends and holidays, he could be found on the baseball diamond.
Finally, in 1938, Mr.
KUTSUKAKE became the starting catcher for
the parent club.
Adept at blocking wild pitches, he was known for his throwing
arm, a disincentive for rivals eager to mimic the Asahi on the
base paths.
On September 18, 1941, he went 0-for-2 before being pulled for
a pinch-hitter in his team's final at-bat in a 3-1 loss to a
club sponsored by The Angelus, a hotel. It would be the Asahi's
final game.
A few months later, his home was seized, as was his family's
Powell Street rooming house.
In 1942, Mr.
KUTSUKAKE was ordered by Canadian authorities to
leave his birthplace for the crimes of his ancestry. On that
terrible winter day, when he had to reduce 31 years of life to
a single suitcase, Mr.
KUTSUKAKE packed for an unknown life in
a relocation camp. Alongside family photos, he placed his cleats,
shin guards, catcher's mask, chest protector and his Asahi uniform.
For Mr. KUTSUKAKE, the equipment was a daily reminder that while
authorities could seize his home, deny him his job, and compromise
his freedom, no one could stop him from playing baseball.
He was sent to Kaslo on Kootenay Lake in the British Columbia
Interior, where he was joined by Asahi pitcher Nag
NISHIHARA.
One of their first acts in the camp was to form a baseball team,
an action that was also occurring in other ghost towns and internment
camps.
(Mr. KUTSUKAKE's father, Tsugio, had complained when he was ordered
to leave behind his wife and daughters. The senior Mr.
KUTSUKAKE
was instead sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Angler, Ontario,
where inmates wore dark uniforms with large circles on the back,
a bull's-eye target for sharpshooters should any try to escape.)
On Dominion Day, 1943, four teams of interned players met in
a one-day showdown in Slocan City, British Columbia Lemon Creek
beat New Denver 13-2 for the championship, while Slocan and Kaslo,
featuring a battery of Mr.
KUTSUKAKE and Mr.
NISHIHARA, were
eliminated earlier in the day. More than 500 spectators watched
the tournament.
"Ahhh," said Mr.
KUTSUKAKE, still sore about a loss 60 years
earlier, "Lemon Creek had the most Asahi players. They should
have won."
After the war ended, those of Japanese ancestry were forbidden
from returning to the coast. Mr.
KUTSUKAKE wound up in Montreal,
where he played for the semi-professional Atwater team in 1947.
He moved to Toronto the following year, where he could be found
behind the plate at Christie Pits. He also had great success
as a coach and manager, winning a West Toronto minor championship
with the Westerns midget team in 1950. He later won a city championship
with the Bestway Nisei, a team comprised of the Canadian-born
sons of Japanese immigrants.
In 1956, he managed Honest Ed's Nisei, a mixed-race team, to
a senior city championship. A delighted Ed
MIRVISH feted the
players with a lavish banquet and presented each with a commemorative
wrist watch.
Mr. KUTSUKAKE worked for many years at Iwata Travel in Toronto.
Until recently, he volunteered at a seniors home, providing prepared
Japanese lunches for residents.
Mr. KUTSUKAKE rejoiced in the belated recognition afforded his
old team. He threw out a ceremonial opening pitch at a Toronto
Blue Jays game at SkyDome in May, 2002, and was deeply touched
by induction into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.
"Naturally, I'm honoured," he said. "It was a big surprise. I
never expected such recognition."
Mr. KUTSUKAKE also appears in the recent National Film Board
documentary Sleeping Tigers, which recounts the history of the
Asahi team and its players. The photographs he saved during the
evacuation have been displayed at the Royal Ontario Museum and
included in Pat Adachi's 1992 book, Asahi: A Legend in Baseball.
Mr. KUTSUKAKE died in his sleep on November 22 at Toronto Grace
Hospital, where he was attending his second wife, Rose, who has
been diagnosed with a brain tumour. His wife of 50 years survives
him, as do sisters Satoko and Eiko, both of Toronto. He was predeceased
by brothers Sekio and Ray, an Asahi pitcher. A first marriage
ended in divorce.
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