CREDIT: MICHAEL DUGAS, THE GAZETTE John Pratt, seen at his house on Allan Point in Dorval in a 1983 photo, was mayor of Dorval from 1955 to 1964. He died at home Sunday at age 96.

John Pratt once described himself as an architect by profession, a politician by default and an entertainer by birth.

The debonair song and dance man and gifted comic, who was mayor of Dorval from 1955 to 1964, a Progressive Conservative member of Parliament from 1957 to 1962, and the producer of entertainment at Expo 67, died at home on Sunday at age 96.

Peter Yeomans, Dorval's last mayor, said Pratt "was a visionary in terms of land use and zoning scenarios.

John Pratt, in Meet the Navy

"Dorval's layout is a tribute to his comprehension of how a community should evolve.

"Preserving the old Elm Ridge Golf Club as a green space was his idea."

Robert John Pratt was born in London on Feb. 28, 1907. Until he was 13 he divided his time between London and Montreal. His father, who invented the seamless hot water bottle, and his mother had what one family member called "a fiery relationship."

Pratt enrolled in engineering at McGill University when he was 15, and spent nine years on campus. There he produced, directed and performed in Red and White Revues before he obtained his architecture degree in 1933.

John Pratt, slide show

Pratt served with the 6th Duke of Connaught Royal Canadian Hussars at the start of the Second World War. In 1942 he joined the navy as an ordinary seaman to perform with the Canadian naval revue Meet the Navy. His song You'll Get Used To It became a worldwide hit.

After the war, he joined the Montreal Repertory Theatre and appeared in radio shows. In 1948 he headed a company that took a musical version of The Drunkard on national tour. He was also the star of another national revue, There Goes Yesterday.

Pratt entertained Canadian troops during the Korean War in the 1950s, and when television was inaugurated in Canada, he was the host of the network series So This Is French.

In 1950 he bought a historic property on Lake St. Louis, and restored the house built in 1666 by Jacques Morin, a victim of the 1689 Lachine massacre.

Pratt was elected to Dorval council as an alderman in 1953 and as mayor in 1955. He was elected to Parliament in 1957.

As early as 1960 he warned against amalgamating Montreal's suburbs into a megacity. The result would not be a metropolis, but a "mess-otropolis," as he called it.

Pratt was defeated as an MP in the 1962 federal election. He resigned the mayoralty in 1964 to become deputy administrator and producer of entertainment at the Montreal World's Fair. There, he was responsible for the World Festival of the Performing Arts, which brought such performers as Sir Laurence Olivier to Montreal for the fair.

John Pratt, slide show

In 1980, Pratt returned to the stage in Halifax and in Ottawa to re-create his role in Meet the Navy as part of observances marking the the 40th anniversary of the Second World War.

He was married three times and had two sons.

The funeral is to be held tomorrow at 11 a.m. in St. Veronica's Roman Catholic Church, 1300 Carson Ave., Dorval.

ahustak@thegazette.canwest.com

Obituary of John Pratt.