Wes Armstrong

Transcript 

00:00:01 Speaker 1 

As Phil Stone, the interviewee on this tape is March Anthony, Vice President, network relations for the CTV Television network, she began her valued broadcasting career in 1954 as a singer on CKNW Radio, Bridgewater, NS. Successively, she was with CBC Television in Halifax and Moncton as script assistant announcer. 

00:00:21 Speaker 1 

Singer and commentator she then joined CGM Radio in Montreal as a writer disc jockey journal. 

00:00:27 Speaker 1 

She moved into television as journalist announced it was CFCF TV Montreal, later joining Cpl. RC Television in Houston, TX as a producer in 1962, she was producer at CBS Television Los Angeles as personal manager and producer of The Smothers Brothers Show for NBC Television. 

00:00:47 Speaker 1 

Also was vice president producer Neil Diamond show for NBC Television Los Angeles. She returned to count in 1978 as promotion director of CTV and was a voted Vice President of promotion in 1980. 

00:01:01 Speaker 1 

March back in 1954, you began as a singer in Bridgewater, NS what were you doing down there? 

00:01:08 Speaker 2 

Well, I I lived there. 

00:01:09 Speaker 2 

That was my home. 

00:01:10 Speaker 2 

I went to high school in Bridgewater and I was a student, a high school student. 

00:01:17 Speaker 2 

When we did the radio show at CBW, I had a fellow student, Donald. 

00:01:24 Speaker 2 

Who most people have heard of, and Donald and a girl named Pat Miller. 

00:01:30 Speaker 2 

And I did a Saturday afternoon program when we were in high school. 

00:01:34 Speaker 2 

And Gerald Regan, the former premier of Nova Scotia, hired us. 

00:01:38 Speaker 2 

He was the promotion man or manager of the station. 

00:01:44 Speaker 2 

And he was also the sportscaster. 

00:01:46 Speaker 1 

For do you remember during the show? 

00:01:47 Speaker 1 

Do you remember the equipment used? 

00:01:48 Speaker 2 

Oh, yes. 

00:01:49 Speaker 2 

Well, we had a grand piano in the studio because all studios had in those days, as you know, all radio studios had wonderful bands and orchestras and pianos and and we did. 

00:02:00 Speaker 2 

Even in Bridgewater, and it was on the 2nd floor over a store or something, the studio was The CW Studios and we sang and danced. 

00:02:12 Speaker 2 

I remember doing tap dancing on radio, and we did we we performed at all the. 

00:02:20 Speaker 2 

Functions in the town, whenever there was a function by the Fireman’s Club or whatever, we were always hired to perform. So we really did our. 

00:02:28 Speaker 2 

Go on radio. 

00:02:30 Speaker 2 

That’s what we did. 

00:02:30 Speaker 1 

And and your whole show was accompanied by a piano. 

00:02:33 Speaker 2 

Oh yes. 

00:02:34 Speaker 2 

Yes, it was. 

00:02:35 Speaker 2 

It was singing and dancing. 

00:02:36 Speaker 1 

That live live radio. 

00:02:37 Speaker 2 

On radio that was live radio. 

00:02:39 Speaker 1 

That disappeared. 

00:02:39 Speaker 2 

Very live. 

00:02:42 Speaker 2 

Yes, but radio. 

00:02:43 Speaker 2 

Is still live, isn’t it? 

00:02:45 Speaker 2 

Even today, radio is live. 

00:02:48 Speaker 1 

It’s live in the sense of of the yes, in the sense of the announcer being there and the the tapes, though that he plays. 

00:02:48 Speaker 2 

When you push that button there. 

00:02:52 Speaker 2 

That’s right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. 

00:02:54 Speaker 2 

Big excitement is still there. 

00:02:56 Speaker 2 

That liveness is when you push that button and you’re on, there’s still the thrill as much television as I’ve done. 

00:03:04 Speaker 2 

And I’ve been away from radio a long time. 

00:03:06 Speaker 2 

I still love radio. 

00:03:08 Speaker 2 

I love going in a radio studio and sitting down at that board and flipping that button. 

00:03:13 Speaker 2 

It’s a wonderful feeling. 

00:03:15 Speaker 1 

Anything ever go wrong for you? 

00:03:16 Speaker 1 

In those times. 

00:03:18 Speaker 2 

Not not on that show. 

00:03:20 Speaker 2 

And if it did, I wasn’t aware. 

00:03:21 Speaker 2 

Of it, of course, I. 

00:03:22 Speaker 2 

Was too young and uninformed. 

00:03:26 Speaker 2 

Now as I as I grew, I realized mistakes that I made and so on. 

00:03:32 Speaker 2 

But I had wonderful times in radio from. 

00:03:37 Speaker 2 

The the Bridgewater area I went on to do television, CBC was television, and I was fortunate to work with Cameron Graham. 

00:03:48 Speaker 2 

For instance, my first job at CBC was he was doing a a version of Johnny, Belinda, and I remember going in the studio and seeing. 

00:03:57 Speaker 2 

Water in the studio they had put. 

00:03:59 Speaker 2 

In a A. 

00:04:02 Speaker 2 

A boat and water in the studio and, you know, television was very new in those days. 

00:04:08 Speaker 2 

And to see that in a studio and think that that was that was done was amazing. 

00:04:13 Speaker 2 

We wouldn’t do that today, of course, but in those days, that’s what they did. 

00:04:17 Speaker 2 

They didn’t go out on location and shoot a boat in the ocean. 

00:04:20 Speaker 2 

They brought the water. 

00:04:22 Speaker 2 

And it was dirty on a. 

00:04:23 Speaker 2 

So anyway, it was that was one. 

00:04:26 Speaker 2 

And I knew that I had been bitten by the business. 

00:04:29 Speaker 2 

And then I. 

00:04:30 Speaker 2 

Would just continue on. 

00:04:31 Speaker 1 

And you were an announcer there too, were you? 

00:04:33 Speaker 2 

No, not it. And no, I did a a script assistant at CBC Television and then I left for Moncton, NB. 

00:04:42 Speaker 2 

It was not a planned stop. 

00:04:44 Speaker 2 

I was on my way to Montreal and got waylaid a little bit with a broken. 

00:04:48 Speaker 2 

Car that hit a horse, but I won’t tell you that story and. 

00:04:53 Speaker 2 

Doctor Moncton went in. 

00:04:55 Speaker 2 

I needed a job. 

00:04:56 Speaker 2 

The car was broken and I had only enough money to take me to Montreal, where I was going. 

00:05:01 Speaker 2 

To be a star. 

00:05:04 Speaker 2 

Anyway, I stopped there and went to see Fred Lyons, who owned the station in Moncton in those days, and C KCW in Moncton, and I got a job doing women’s news. They called it then and where you reported on what missus. 

00:05:25 Speaker 2 

Chev wore and not what? 

00:05:27 Speaker 2 

Nikita Khrushchev did with his shoe, and that’s true. 

00:05:30 Speaker 1 

Could I just interject here some students of broadcasting could be listening to these tapes in the future? 

00:05:36 Speaker 1 

Wasn’t it the the sort of the ritual that every station had? 

00:05:40 Speaker 1 

One woman who did one woman show, but it wasn’t a woman who was a thinking woman, rather one who did what you said, what she wore and what she made in the kitchen. 

00:05:42 Speaker 2 

That’s right. 

00:05:47 Speaker 2 

Women’s news women’s news. That was the thing women were able were allowed to do children’s programming. That was very big for us. 

00:05:55 Speaker 2 

And cooking shows and the women’s view of the news. And it’s true. I was told that my assignment was to to write about what the people wore who accompanied. 

00:06:10 Speaker 2 

The the political figures or whatever, right? 

00:06:12 Speaker 1 

The the the the male figure. 

00:06:15 Speaker 2 

And that was what it was. 

00:06:16 Speaker 2 

It really was that. 

00:06:18 Speaker 2 

And so that’s what I did in Moncton. 

00:06:20 Speaker 2 

I also did the weather because it was always a female weather girl. 

00:06:24 Speaker 2 

That’s OK though it’s not a bad way to start out and today. 

00:06:28 Speaker 1 

No, but all. 

00:06:28 Speaker 1 

That all that structure merge. 

00:06:30 Speaker 1 

Did it not bother you? 

00:06:31 Speaker 2 

Well, there wasn’t anything to compare it to. 

00:06:33 Speaker 2 

Remember, I was coming in the first there was a woman ahead of me at Moncton. 

00:06:39 Speaker 2 

She retired. 

00:06:40 Speaker 2 

Thank goodness that week before. 

00:06:42 Speaker 2 

I was looking for a job. 

00:06:43 Speaker 2 

So there was that one opening again. 

00:06:45 Speaker 2 

They had to fill the woman’s slot. I took what I could get and it wasn’t terrible at all. I learned a lot. 

00:06:45 Speaker 1 

So he took what? 

00:06:46 Speaker 1 

You could get, in other words. 

00:06:51 Speaker 2 

Among them, because I was given a lot of freedom. 

00:06:54 Speaker 2 

Joe Irvin, who is still with ATV and is one of our board members now, are working with our. 

00:07:01 Speaker 2 

It’s very nice that I’m still dealing with him and we laugh about things that happen. 

00:07:06 Speaker 2 

I’ve got to do television and Moncton, also because they owned radio and television, so it was wonderful training ground. 

00:07:11 Speaker 2 

I did everything. 

00:07:13 Speaker 2 

For instance, and for journalism students who would listen to this today, they would not believe that this did happen. 

00:07:20 Speaker 2 

But it did. 

00:07:21 Speaker 2 

In those days, I introduced the afternoon movie for. 

00:07:25 Speaker 2 

And I would go in the studio and set up the seating. 

00:07:30 Speaker 2 

I’d put the chair down the table, get the lighting. 

00:07:32 Speaker 2 

I did the staging. 

00:07:34 Speaker 2 

I would then go behind the camera and focus the camera in and lock it in position. 

00:07:39 Speaker 2 

I would then go sit in the chair and the switch would turn the camera on. 

00:07:43 Speaker 2 

I would say good afternoon. 

00:07:45 Speaker 2 

Today’s movie is so and so, and we’ll be right back. 

00:07:48 Speaker 2 

And then I would jump up. 

00:07:49 Speaker 2 

And do something else. 

00:07:51 Speaker 2 

While the movie played and back in to introduce. 

00:07:54 Speaker 2 

The breaks, that was it. 

00:07:54 Speaker 1 

And such was early television. 

00:07:56 Speaker 2 

I was alone in the studio for the afternoon movie and it was all. 

00:08:01 Speaker 2 

So that’s what I did. 

00:08:02 Speaker 2 

It was wonderful. 

00:08:03 Speaker 2 

What a great training ground you see. 

00:08:05 Speaker 2 

Students don’t get that today, and that’s sad. 

00:08:07 Speaker 2 

It’s very difficult today. 

00:08:09 Speaker 2 

It was easier to learn then if you really wanted to go in there and work and do it. 

00:08:15 Speaker 2 

And I did. 

00:08:16 Speaker 2 

I don’t know how many shows during a day. 

00:08:18 Speaker 2 

I would do a travel show in the morning, a cooking show at noon. 

00:08:21 Speaker 2 

A children’s show and go over to radio and do the news and come back and do the weather. 

00:08:25 Speaker 1 

How about the equipment? 

00:08:26 Speaker 1 

Did you understand and use it? 

00:08:28 Speaker 2 

Well, we were. 

00:08:30 Speaker 2 

They still had the. 

00:08:33 Speaker 2 

Engineers still like to control their things. 

00:08:35 Speaker 2 

Yeah, but I was interested. 

00:08:37 Speaker 2 

So of course I would go in and and you know, today when you see the marvelous boards and the and the cameras that I saw camera in Calgary this this last time when we were doing the Olympics. 

00:08:43 Speaker 1 

The camera. 

00:08:51 Speaker 2 

That is a brand new camera and it’s a little lightweight. 

00:08:54 Speaker 2 

Thing you hold in your hand, and I think about those giant things you have to turn and move around. 

00:09:00 Speaker 2 

Founded anyway, times have changed and I’m glad that I’ve been here long enough to see the new lightweight cameras. 

00:09:07 Speaker 1 

Let’s move to Montreal. 

00:09:08 Speaker 1 

You went there to CGK GM. 

00:09:10 Speaker 2 

Yes, that was my first job, although it wasn’t supposed to be. 

00:09:13 Speaker 2 

I went to Montreal because I was going to be a star on CFCF television. 

00:09:19 Speaker 2 

However, when I got to Montreal, I found out that it hadn’t been built yet. 

00:09:23 Speaker 2 

The building was still under construction and a wonderful man. 

00:09:27 Speaker 2 

And Bud Hayward was there one day and I went out to visit CFCF, and I was so destroyed when I saw it because I thought I was going in to get a job and it was still being built. 

00:09:39 Speaker 2 

And there was a nice man there and a hard hat and I. 

00:09:41 Speaker 2 

Spoke to him. 

00:09:42 Speaker 2 

And said, you know I. 

00:09:43 Speaker 2 

Came to work at CFCF and it was Bud Hayward and we met and. 

00:09:46 Speaker 2 

I went to visit him on a regular. 

00:09:48 Speaker 2 

Weekly basis until I finally got the job. 

00:09:51 Speaker 1 

At CFCN, it’s about 1960 was. 

00:09:53 Speaker 2 

It enough? Yes, just maybe 59 because we signed on I think in 1960s. 

00:09:58 Speaker 2 

31 and in the meantime, again, I had to make a living. So Finlay MacDonald. Senator Finlay MacDonald from my home in Nova Scotia said to me, when you go to Montreal, if you have difficulty, call Jeff Sterling. He’s the nicest millionaire I know. Tell him that you need help. And would he guide you? 

00:10:18 Speaker 1 

Should define him. 

00:10:19 Speaker 1 

He was the owner of CKTG. 

00:10:20 Speaker 2 

The CGM at that time and he’s now CJ NTV in Newfoundland and one of the Board of directors of the CTV Television Network. 

00:10:31 Speaker 2 

And we’re still great friends. 

00:10:33 Speaker 2 

After all these many. 

00:10:34 Speaker 2 

30 years or whatever. 

00:10:35 Speaker 2 

It is. 

00:10:36 Speaker 2 

Anyway, I did call him and I was naive enough and young enough to say that just that to him, that Mister McDonald thinks you’re the nicest millionaire he knows. 

00:10:46 Speaker 2 

And he said to take care of me. 

00:10:47 Speaker 2 

So Jeff Sterling said, well, have you had lunch? 

00:10:51 Speaker 2 

And I said no. 

00:10:52 Speaker 2 

And he said, well, I might as well start. 

00:10:53 Speaker 2 

There come over and I’ll take you to lunch. 

00:10:55 Speaker 2 

He did. 

00:10:55 Speaker 2 

We had lunch and he brought me back to the studio, took me in and introduced me to Bill Ballantine. 

00:11:02 Speaker 2 

It was a well known name in radio in Toronto, and he said, Bill, this is your new script assistant. 

00:11:08 Speaker 2 

She’ll be your new continuity writer, and she’ll start right away. 

00:11:12 Speaker 2 

I had never written a commercial in my life and I didn’t really type. 

00:11:19 Speaker 2 

And so I said, OK and then he left me with Bill. 

00:11:22 Speaker 2 

And Bill said, well, what have you done? 

00:11:24 Speaker 2 

And I said nothing. 

00:11:27 Speaker 2 

So Bill was wonderful and I stayed up all night long listening to American radio stations. 

00:11:34 Speaker 2 

Hearing commercials, writing them down, changing the names the next day so I could write them as a Canadian commercial. 

00:11:41 Speaker 2 

I did that, I admit now, and anyone could do whatever they like to me. 

00:11:45 Speaker 2 

But I did do that. 

00:11:46 Speaker 2 

And that’s how I learned to write commercials, and that’s how I kept that job. 

00:11:50 Speaker 2 

And then I discovered the glory of going. 

00:11:54 Speaker 2 

In a studio and being on your own and being responsible for what you were saying and what was going out over those airwaves, and as you know, Phil, it’s such a fabulous. 

00:12:07 Speaker 2 

Wonderful feeling and I got hooked. 

00:12:10 Speaker 2 

And then I had to have. 

00:12:12 Speaker 2 

A show. 

00:12:13 Speaker 2 

So I talked to Jeff about the all night show and again, women were OK to do midnight till dawn. 

00:12:21 Speaker 2 

What was the girls name? 

00:12:23 Speaker 2 

Of the first one who was a wonderful woman who knows what tomorrow may bring. 

00:12:30 Speaker 2 

I wonder if you know when her heart starts to sing. 

00:12:32 Speaker 2 

That was her theme song anyway. 

00:12:34 Speaker 2 

I did that music till dawn and I was able to write poetry and do all that malty stuff. That is so wonderful to do. And we were rock’n’roll. It was the Golden modulation station, CK GM in Montreal. 

00:12:51 Speaker 2 

And I was playing Peggy Lee Frank Sinatra in the middle of the night. 

00:12:56 Speaker 2 

I thought I would know. 

00:12:58 Speaker 2 

Well, Jeff knew, and I had quite a few memos from him saying you cannot change the format of this. 

00:13:05 Speaker 2 

Radio station. 

00:13:06 Speaker 2 

However, my viewers, I think, liked it. 

00:13:08 Speaker 2 

I think I have and then it would have live guests in the middle of the night. 

00:13:13 Speaker 2 

They would come from because in those days in Montreal, it’s a wonderful city and of performers who were there from all over and they would come in after they finished their show at two 3:00 o’clock in the morning and have. 

00:13:25 Speaker 2 

The chicken Chalet with me and we do interviews on the air. 

00:13:29 Speaker 1 

But that that was harking back really, wasn’t it because it used to be. 

00:13:32 Speaker 2 

Like that, it was wonderful. 

00:13:34 Speaker 2 

It was a wonderful time and in in radio. 

00:13:36 Speaker 2 

I thought it was. 

00:13:38 Speaker 2 

I don’t think television ever had that. 

00:13:40 Speaker 2 

That excitement that the old days of radio had people were just warm and friendly. 

00:13:47 Speaker 2 

Everyone loved radio and I think today I don’t think anyone says anyone who’s ever done radio would ever say that they preferred. 

00:13:56 Speaker 2 

Anything else over it? 

00:13:57 Speaker 2 

I think people who’ve gone from radio into television all still love radio. 

00:14:02 Speaker 2 

And it was fun. 

00:14:02 Speaker 2 

We we had a wonderful. 

00:14:03 Speaker 1 

Time you made a big switch from a city like Montreal, QC was to Texas, to Houston that that, that’s quite a switch. 

00:14:13 Speaker 2 

And I have a funny story about that I I. 

00:14:17 Speaker 2 

Had been on the air doing. 

00:14:19 Speaker 2 

Radio and television in Montreal and and when I was with CFCF in Montreal, I did carte blanche with Jimmy Tap, a daily journalism program, interviews and so on. 

00:14:31 Speaker 2 

I did the the news, I did weather all these things and I was on television all the time. 

00:14:38 Speaker 2 

I did major commercials in Montreal. 

00:14:40 Speaker 2 

Montreal was a major market. 

00:14:43 Speaker 2 

I went to Houston, TX and I thought no problem. 

00:14:45 Speaker 2 

I would have a job. 

00:14:46 Speaker 2 

I went in to a couple of the stations I applied for on air work and they said. 

00:14:54 Speaker 2 

That the interview was very nice and the audition was wonderful, but they couldn’t hire me with my accent. 

00:15:00 Speaker 2 

In Texas, of course I had. 

00:15:00 Speaker 1 

Your Canadian accent. 

00:15:02 Speaker 2 

I didn’t talk texting honey, and I was shocked by that. 

00:15:07 Speaker 2 

But it’s true to them. 

00:15:08 Speaker 2 

I had an accent to me, to they had the accent. 

00:15:11 Speaker 2 

However, I didn’t get a job on air, which was wonderful. 

00:15:14 Speaker 2 

They gave me a job production, so it opened up a whole new area that I hadn’t experienced before. 

00:15:20 Speaker 2 

And I became a producer in Texas, and I did. 

00:15:25 Speaker 2 

Commercials because they hired me for all the bank commercials and. 

00:15:28 Speaker 2 

All those those proper things because that they thought I was very British, so I would do bank commercials with tea services and. 

00:15:36 Speaker 2 

Things like that in front of me and I rode the Salt Cross trail ride and I I did the whole thing. 

00:15:45 Speaker 2 

The whole Texas thing I enjoyed that stint and met this mother’s brothers there, which was another wonderful thing for me. 

00:15:52 Speaker 2 

They said if you ever come to California, you have a job because they liked what I did with them. 

00:15:58 Speaker 2 

So I did go to California and I called them and I had a job. 

00:16:03 Speaker 2 

They are men of their word, and they did hire me. 

00:16:06 Speaker 1 

What was it like in the earliest part, though? 

00:16:08 Speaker 1 

What was it? 

00:16:09 Speaker 1 

As sophisticated as it is today, was it more difficult to produce? 

00:16:15 Speaker 2 

I don’t think so. 

00:16:16 Speaker 2 

I think really it it it was the same and it and it’s interesting when we we just came back from Calgary, AB where we did that we were the host broadcasters for the 15th Winter Olympic Games and. 

00:16:30 Speaker 2 

In watching the producers in the studio there, it really hasn’t changed that much. 

00:16:35 Speaker 2 

You know, production is production, you know, you have to collect your materials and make it interesting and put it together and time it and get it. 

00:16:41 Speaker 2 

To air. 

00:16:42 Speaker 2 

It’s the same thing. 

00:16:42 Speaker 2 

Basically people things are the same machinery, of course, and equipment has gone beyond the wildest imaginations. 

00:16:51 Speaker 2 

The person is still needed. 

00:16:54 Speaker 2 

Still need people to to run those machines. 

00:16:56 Speaker 1 

And the people you worked with, The Smothers Brothers, that would change your life in television, didn’t it? 

00:17:02 Speaker 2 

It did, and it didn’t. 

00:17:04 Speaker 2 

Actually, it changed a lot. 

00:17:09 Speaker 2 

Less than people imagined it would, and I could probably explain that by one little story of it was in the early days of of the the flower children and the drug scene in California. 

00:17:25 Speaker 2 

And you know, it was a very rough time. 

00:17:28 Speaker 2 

We look back at that flower child time and think how lovely that was. 

00:17:32 Speaker 2 

It wasn’t lovely at all. 

00:17:34 Speaker 2 

Kids were lost and they didn’t know where to go. 

00:17:36 Speaker 2 

And it was Haight Ashbury. 

00:17:37 Speaker 2 

And they were sleeping on the street and they were drugged and they were dying and committing suicide. 

00:17:41 Speaker 2 

And Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, it was not a pretty time. 

00:17:45 Speaker 2 

We think of it as the flower. 

00:17:47 Speaker 2 

It wasn’t. 

00:17:50 Speaker 2 

I was in the middle of that because those mother’s brothers were in the middle of that with it. 

00:17:55 Speaker 1 

You were the personal manager and producer. 

00:17:57 Speaker 2 

I ended up their personal manager, but when I started out I was personal manager with a lot of other people too. 

00:18:03 Speaker 2 

The 1st edition, Kenny Rogers and the 1st edition we went to see Kenny for the first time. 

00:18:09 Speaker 2 

To put together that group, because I had met him in Houston, TX with a little trio called Bobby Doyle Trio, and Kenny knew me. 

00:18:18 Speaker 2 

He asked me if I thought that Tommy’s mothers would come to see him, and I took Tommy to Ledbetter’s in Los Angeles to see Kenny Rogers. And that’s how that all began. 

00:18:29 Speaker 2 

I also managed Mason Williams, who had a hit at that time. 

00:18:33 Speaker 2 

Called classic. 

00:18:33 Speaker 2 

The gas. 

00:18:34 Speaker 2 

John Hartford. 

00:18:36 Speaker 2 

Was one of my clients and I negotiated John Hartford’s deal with this mother’s brothers who were also. I was working for this mother’s brothers negotiating John Hartford’s deal. So he could appear on The Smothers Brothers comedy Hour with Glenn Campbell. 

00:18:50 Speaker 2 

So it was from the very yes and all these people were involved and it was Chevy Chase and all those people. 

00:18:51 Speaker 1 

But you’re involved with this mother’s brother. 

00:18:53 Speaker 1 

You were saying in the flower children. 

00:19:02 Speaker 2 

And it was a rough time and someone said to. 

00:19:03 Speaker 2 

Me and drugs were everywhere. 

00:19:06 Speaker 2 

It was available to everyone. 

00:19:08 Speaker 2 

I watched people that I knew and had. 

00:19:11 Speaker 2 

Taking drugs and so on. 

00:19:13 Speaker 2 

And to me, it was just something I couldn’t imagine anyone doing. 

00:19:17 Speaker 2 

And someone said to me, how did you come through that? 

00:19:20 Speaker 2 

I lived on the beach in Malibu. 

00:19:21 Speaker 2 

That was my home. 

00:19:22 Speaker 2 

I was in the heart. 

00:19:23 Speaker 2 

Of it there. 

00:19:23 Speaker 2 

I was in the heart of it in Hollywood. 

00:19:25 Speaker 2 

And they said, how did you come through it and not get involved at all in drugs? 

00:19:29 Speaker 2 

Why you I had no interest in it at all. 

00:19:31 Speaker 2 

And I my. 

00:19:31 Speaker 2 

The answer was and. 

00:19:32 Speaker 2 

I really believe it. 

00:19:33 Speaker 2 

I was from Nova Scotia. 

00:19:36 Speaker 1 

That that. 

00:19:37 Speaker 1 

That said it all. 

00:19:37 Speaker 2 

Yeah, of course. 

00:19:39 Speaker 2 

Would someone from Nova Scotia? 

00:19:42 Speaker 2 

Get involved with taking cocaine. 

00:19:45 Speaker 2 

I mean it just it was not something one would do if one came from my background in Nova Scotia. 

00:19:52 Speaker 2 

Just wouldn’t happen, so it was easy for me, so I didn’t change that much. 

00:19:57 Speaker 2 

I did meet people from all walks of life and and all areas. 

00:20:01 Speaker 1 

He became involved with Neil Diamond later, didn’t you? 

00:20:03 Speaker 2 

Yes, Neil was a neighbor on the beach and I so I knew him. 

00:20:06 Speaker 2 

And when The Smothers Brothers retired the first time, I decided I would. 

00:20:12 Speaker 2 

Two and I was 42 years old and I thought I’ve done my share for whatever and I’m going to take some time off and just lounge around on the beach and play tennis and do nothing. 

00:20:25 Speaker 2 

I’ve earned this, so I went off trip to Hawaii and did a few things, came back and I met Neil on the street, and by this time I was thinking now what? 

00:20:33 Speaker 2 

I do tomorrow. 

00:20:34 Speaker 2 

I can’t lay in the sun again and he said, what are you going to do? 

00:20:38 Speaker 2 

And I said I’ve retired and he said no, no, no, no. 

00:20:40 Speaker 2 

I need you. 

00:20:41 Speaker 2 

I’m going to do television for the first time. 

00:20:43 Speaker 2 

Come on. 

00:20:43 Speaker 2 

Come to work for me. 

00:20:45 Speaker 2 

So that’s what I did. 

00:20:46 Speaker 1 

That’s the early 70s, isn’t it? 

00:20:48 Speaker 2 

That was early 70s and I I worked for Neil until I came here to Canada in 1979. 

00:20:56 Speaker 1 

So you came back and? 

00:20:56 Speaker 1 

You came back to CTV. 

00:20:58 Speaker 2 

Came back to CTV because I remembered names like Arthur Weinthal, whom I’d worked with in Montreal at CFCF, and I came back here to see Murray Chercover met with. 

00:21:09 Speaker 2 

And a job again just happened to be opening again. 

00:21:14 Speaker 2 

Women are allowed to do promotion and public relations. 

00:21:17 Speaker 2 

And this is the 80s, I might tell you that you say that in those days 30 years ago, women were doing women’s news. 

00:21:26 Speaker 2 

But I’m still the only female vice president in this network, and I was the first female Vice president in Canadian television when I was appointed in 1980. 

00:21:37 Speaker 1 

OK, maybe that hasn’t changed, but what about the total business? 

00:21:41 Speaker 1 

As you look back on the scene that you lived in it you said earlier, it isn’t that much different in many ways, it’s still alive, it’s still exciting, it’s still creative. 

00:21:51 Speaker 1 

Is it the same really? 

00:21:53 Speaker 2 

I think it is. 

00:21:54 Speaker 2 

I think people are the same and radio and television is people. 

00:22:00 Speaker 2 

You know it’s still. 

00:22:02 Speaker 2 

It’s still you still need. 

00:22:06 Speaker 2 

People you still have to have something that is inside of you. 

00:22:12 Speaker 1 

But the application the the methods, they’ve become more sophisticated and haven’t they improved in in doing that? 

00:22:18 Speaker 2 

Oh, sure. 

00:22:18 Speaker 2 

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. 

00:22:21 Speaker 2 

And sound and stereo and all these things. 

00:22:24 Speaker 2 

Remember, I remember the first time we went. 

00:22:26 Speaker 2 

Stereo in Montreal at CK FM. 

00:22:30 Speaker 2 

And Bill Ballantyne had this little these little two players or something you should talk to him about that. 

00:22:37 Speaker 2 

It was unbelievable. 

00:22:38 Speaker 2 

He set up the FM studios and the little players looked as if they only had two players running. 

00:22:44 Speaker 2 

I can’t remember what it was, but the equipment was so crude and this was we were going stereo. 

00:22:51 Speaker 2 

Now today, of course, you know what equipment looks like and. 

00:22:56 Speaker 2 

Everything is a push of a button or a computer and everything is computerized except the person. 

00:23:02 Speaker 2 

Again, you still have your fill stone. 

00:23:07 Speaker 1 

You still have people. 

00:23:08 

You still have. 

00:23:09 Speaker 1 

People, thank you. This has been an interview with Marc Anthony recorded in March of 1988.