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Find on Wednesday-Night W-N MORDECAI RICHLER Hits | Wikipedia | search clusty | bio | fastsearch | cbc | shop | | | Slides | CTV | movies 2007 Monday 17 September 2007 Barbara Kay Trapped On St. Urbain Street Six years after his death, Mordecai Richler remains a giant of the Canadian literary firmament, and interest in his work remains strong. This week, CBC Television will air a two-part adaptation of St. Urbain's Horseman. McClelland & Stewart is also set to release a new paperback edition of the 1971 classic. This week, the National Post comment pages present a series of essays on Mordecai Richler and his oeuvre. In today's first instalment, Barbara Kay argues that Richler's fascination with the culture of Montreal's St. Urbain Street neighbourhood was the author's dynamo, but also may have prevented him from attaining greater literary heights. St. Urbain's Horseman rides again Mordecai Richler's classic novel is being made into a miniseries for CBC. It took a while to get a script just right, and David Julian Hirsh, who will play Jake, can hardly wait BRENDAN KELLY, The Gazette Monday, September 11, 2006 St. Urbain's Horseman, the book many consider to be Mordecai Richler's masterpiece, is finally going to be adapted for the small screen. After years in development at Montreal-based Galafilm, the cameras start rolling this week in Montreal on a $7.4-million, four-hour miniseries based on the 1971 Governor General's Award-winning novel. It will air on CBC sometime during the 2007-2008 season. Ian Whitehead, who is producing St. Urbain's Horseman, said the project has taken a long time for one simple reason: The producers had a tough time coming up with a screenplay that does justice to the rich, complex novel chronicling the trials and tribulations of an expatriate Canadian TV director living in London, England. "This was particularly hard to crack at the script level," Whitehead said in a phone interview from the St. Urbain's Horseman production offices late last week. "The first adaptation was quite close to the book, with the jumping back and forth in time, and it was just really messy. So getting it right took a long time." By the time Los Angeles-based writer Joe Wiesenfeld came along, several drafts of the script had been written. According to Whitehead, the final version from Wiesenfeld is much more linear than the novel. The book, and the miniseries, tell the story of Jake Hersh, a kid who - like Richler - grew up in the 1940s and '50s in the Jewish community then centred on the area around St. Urbain St. Hersh becomes a successful director, but he is one frustrated guy, in part because he remains obsessed with his cousin Joey, a mythic figure for Jake. Former Montrealer David Julian Hirsh - the star of Naked Josh - plays Jake, alongside British actress Selina Giles as his wife, Michael Riley as the nefarious Harry Stein, Andrea Martin as Jake's mother, and Jacob Tierney as Joey. The miniseries is directed by stage and TV veteran Peter Moss. Hirsh, who has coveted this role for years, didn't make any effort to hide his excitement on the phone last week. "It's one of my favourite novels and (Jake) is this iconic Montreal character," said Hirsh, who first read the novel as a teenager while a student at St. George's High School. Hirsh's mother was brought up in the St. Urbain St. area, and Hirsh still remembers her driving him around the neighbourhood when he was a teenager to show him her old haunts. He's pumped to have finally landed the role after chasing it for so long, but admits to a certain fear as well, because he knows it won't be easy to do justice to Jake. "He's such a complex character," Hirsh said. "That's what's so interesting about the novel. I was watching the movie of Duddy Kravitz again the other day and Duddy is much more (straightforward) as a character. He has this absolute drive and ambition. Jake is much more conflicted. He is obsessed with this idea of courage." Though roughly two-thirds of the action in the miniseries is set in London, all of it will be shot on location here. Heathrow Airport will be replicated in the Old Port, the Centaur Theatre will stand in for London's Canada House, and scenes at Jake's home in the Hampstead area of London - one of the main settings - will be shot in a house on the northern border of Westmount. The real St. Urbain St. will not be in the miniseries because Whitehead said it is now too busy a street to close down. Instead, the filmmakers will shoot the St. Urbain scenes on Garnier St., a few streets west of Papineau Ave. - - - Hirsh also stars in Love Bites, the U.S. adaptation of the hit Quebecois sitcom Un gars, une fille; it's set to make its debut on TBS on Wednesday. Hirsh plays Max, the Americanized version of Guy, the character portrayed by writer Guy A. Lepage in the Quebec original. Un gars, une fille has been adapted and broadcast in over 20 countries around the world. In the U.S., the show has been transformed into 65 21/2-minute episodes for TBS, which will air nightly after Sex and the City. The micro-format is also designed to allow viewers to download the series on their cellphones. Love Bites is co-produced and written by Paul Reiser, who starred opposite Helen Hunt in Mad About You. In an interview with Christiane Charette during her show Friday morning on La Premiere Chaine of Radio-Canada, Lepage said he is in the midst of a dispute with the Love Bites producers. Lepage alleged the producers have not respected the contract's terms, which stipulate that he have some control over the creative content of the show. While he was involved in the initial stages of production, he has not seen the final product. "It's the first time that we have had a problem with a broadcaster or producer," Lepage said. Representatives of Love Bites were not available for comment. bkelly@thegazette.canwest.com © The Gazette (Montreal) 2006

Duddy Kravitz Barney's Version the Cat Essays A Choice of Enemies Cocksure The Incomparable Atuk Joshua Then and Now St. Urbain's Horseman Solomon Gursky Was Here Son of a Smaller Hero Jacob Two-Two: Meets the Hooded Fang First Spy Case And The Dinosaur CBC Indepth CBC Videos Hot Type, 1998 (runs 18:38) In his own words (runs 7:36) On the Arts, 1997 (runs 2:39) Alison Smith on the life of Mordecai Richler, 2001 (runs 3:38)

July 3, 2001 cbc Archive Mourning Mordecai Richler Mordecai Richler 3/Jul/2001 Our curmudgeon (Mordecai Richler) It's all but impossible now, with the first anniversary of Mordecai Richler's death coming up on July 3 and an elaborate memorial planned for him Thursday evening, to imagine a time when Richler was not an integral part of this country's literary, cultural and political landscape

has a lot Thursday, December 20, 2001 Richler gets call to Order Richler gets call to Order Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson presents the insignia of Companion of the Order of Canada to Florence Richler on behalf of her late husband during a ceremony at Rideau Hall yesterday.CPThe setting was about as far from the gritty back streets of Duddy Kravitz's Montreal as you can get. -Mordecai Richler Mordecai Richler page Wrote the controversial "Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!" TRIBUTES FLOW IN FOR MORDECAI RICHLER Canadian author Mordecai Richler is dead after a lengthy battle with cancer. Richler was 70. Tributes flow in for Mordecai Richler WebPosted Tue Jul 3 17:54:55 2001 MONTREAL - Canadian author Mordecai Richler is dead after a lengthy battle with cancer. Richler was 70. The Quebec author of over a dozen novels is best known for his works on Montreal Jewish life. Mordecai Richler in the late 1950s Author Michael Ondaatje says Richler was the first author to give Canadian writing a modern voice. Calling him "hilariously funny and iconoclastic," Ondaatje says "I am still moved by his human outrage. He was a wonderful man. A hero." One of modern literature's most accomplished novelists, Richler's works include The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Solomon Gursky Was Here, Joshua Then and Now, and Barney's Version. He also wrote the children's favourite Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang. Writing for more than 40 years, Richler's books dealt with modern urban life, and the complexities of identity and personality. CBC Life & Times: Bio of Richler In May 2001 he was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada and is the recipient of two Governor-General literary awards, the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour and the Giller Prize. BACKGROUNDER: Order of Canada Recipients He has also been nominated for the Booker Prize. Last fall he was honoured at the International Festival of Authors as one of the finest writers in the English language and one of Canada's most acerbic wits. Richler's family, wife Florence and five children, say there will be a funeral service for close friends and family at the end of this week, and that they will announce the date and location of a public memorial service soon. FROM June 8, 2000: Richler eyes Sherbrooke paper FROM Oct. 16, 1999: Seven Canadians up for richest fiction award FROM Oct. 30, 2000: Premier Binns isn't laughing Written by CBC News Online staff cbc links Norman Hermant reports for CBC TV Susanne King reports for CBC Radio [Download Players] NEWSWORLD COVERAGE: CLIP:   CBC Newsworld's Jennifer Gates talks to Doug Gibson, president of McClelland and Stewart, Richler's publisher Laurie Brown interviews Mordecai Richler for CBC Newsworld's On the Arts in 1997 Jennifer Gates talks to Joel Yanofski, book columnist with the Montreal Gazette about his thoughts on Richler CBC Newsworld's Peter Van Dusen talks to Richard King, manager of the Paragraph Bookstore in Montreal Ralph Benmergui speaks with some of his friends and colleagues: Terry Mosher, Avi Bennet and Peter Gzowski CBC RADIO COVERAGE: CLIP: Lauren McCallum reports on reaction in the literary world Rex Murphy's on Real Video July 3, 2001 Mordecai Richler 1931–2001 Mordecai Richler was here. He had quite a span in fiction and quite some marvelous creations from Duddy Kravitz to Jacob Two-Two and Barney Panofsky, but to my mind the most emphatic and compelling character on or off the page was Mordecai Richler himself. Wednesday 4 July 2001 Pride of Baron Byng never lost edge MIKE BOONE The Gazette Ask Baron Byng high school graduates to select a favourite passage in a Mordecai Richler novel and most of us would pinpoint the bomb-target story. In The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, his breakthrough novel, published in 1959, Richler had his hero attending Fletcher's Field High School. It was a thinly veiled fictionalization of Baron Byng, from which Richler had graduated in 1948. Not much of the novel takes place at the old building on St. Urbain St. Richler had to get Kravitz out of high school and off to make his fortune in the rough-and-tumble Montreal of the 1940s. During the less hectic 1960s, when I was at Byng, we particularly savoured Richler's recollection of the war years. The novelist wrote that students had painted a huge bull's-eye on the roof of Fletcher's Field/Baron Byng High, hoping that the school would be targeted during a World War II air raid. In sketching this scenario, Richler captured the essence of Byng. Class-consciousness and an anarchic spirit pervaded the student body, which - during his time and mine - was almost entirely Jewish. We all had living links, whether parents or grandparents, to an eastern European culture that the Holocaust hadn't entirely eradicated. Shtetl wit - world-weary and sardonic, sometimes mean-spirited and bitterly sarcastic - informed the daily discourse of Baron Byng students. Woe betide the Byng boy (the girls, in those days of segregated classrooms, did their own thing) who hadn't learned to shoot pool and fire caustic one-liners. The students with pretensions would become the target of especially savage putdowns. Richler took that finely honed St. Urbain St. razor and applied it to the jugular of the whole darn town - or at least the west-of-St.-Denis Montreal that he knew. He never lost his edge. One of the more celebrated - and, possibly, apocryphal - examples of his cutting wit was his conversation with Saidye Bronfman. "You've done very well for a boy from St. Urbain St.," she told Richler. "And you've done very well," he shot back, "for the wife of a bootlegger." Funny how social mobility works among the literati. Richler grew up on St. Urbain resenting high society and then spent countless Happy Hours as the resident literary legend in the Ritz bar, a WASP redoubt. Leonard Cohen, raised in Westmount, became a pop star singing songs of love and practicing what he preached in a small flat just off St. Laurent Blvd. When I was at Byng, the living link to Richler was our English teacher. Frances Katz grew up above her parents' store and studied at McGill and at Columbia University. Miss Katz (I still instinctively attach the marital-status identification she took to her grave) spent 40 years conveying the pleasures of our mother tongue to young skeptics. Richler, of course, was her prize pupil. Fifteen years later, she tried - with dogged persistence and limited success - to persuade us that Shakespeare was a more interesting writer than Harold Robbins. "When I taught Mordecai," Miss Katz would say, winding up to deliver another eye-glazing reminiscence of her role in shaping the rough clay of future greatness. Her captive audience of high-school smartasses would yawn and silently pray for a latter-day air raid. Years later, after we'd read Duddy Kravitz and Richler's broader evocations of Montreal life, Byng alumni felt a particular appreciation of how the old neighbourhood and its high school had nurtured the novelist's vision. A grieving Jack Rabinovitch was not in a talkative mood when I spoke to him yesterday. Rabinovitch was a year ahead of Richler at Baron Byng, and they had been good friends since. "It was a different time and a different era and he captured it," Rabinovitch said of Richler. "It's hard to think of life without him. All he wanted to be was an honest witness to his times." Did he succeed? Rabinovitch thinks so. In assessing his friend's literary legacy, Rabinovitch remembered his wife's funeral in 1993 and the eulogy Richler delivered for Doris Giller. "He said she had a nose for the fraudulent," Rabinovitch recalled, his voice cracking. "That's also true of Mordecai. And he had the wit and the imagination to satirize it." - Mike Boone can be reached by phone at (514) 987-2569 or by E-mail at mboone@thegazette.southam.ca

Stories the GAZETTE's Links have been Killed! by th paper September 16, 2001 nyt Mordecai Richler In Quebec Culture in New York a festival which runs until Oct. 7. By JACQUES GODBOUT Thu 7/12/01 RICHLER BOOK TO BE RELEASED EARLIER A Canadian publisher is going ahead with plans to release the last book written by Mordecai Richler. Knopf says the book titled On Snooker will be published because of the surge in demand for Richler's work since the Montreal author's death last week. The book is a non-fiction look at the game of billiards. It was supposed to be published in late August or early September. Tue 7/10/01 Responding to grief's call off duty By: ASHOK CHANDWANI On the night before his father Mordecai's funeral, a shell-shocked Jake Richler and his wife Leann were sitting in a corner at Ziggy's bar coming to terms with the telescoped emotions of the past few days. Ziggy, friend to the family and, indeed, to most of the world, was alternating between hovering in sympathy and schmoozing with his customers. Sat 7/7/01 A stranger in his own land By: HUBERT BAUCH The Gazette One of the most eloquent tributes to Mordecai Richler upon his sudden passing this week was that Bernard Landry managed to stifle himself for the occasion. It was left to Culture Minister Diane Lemieux to impart the official Quebec government comment, which she rendered with frosty grace in a stringent statement that said almost in toto: "Mr. Richler was a significant Quebec novelist and an ambassador for anglo-Quebec literature. The quality of his novels is recognized as much in Quebec as in Canada and abroad." Thu 7/5/01 Richler was just one of the guys By: ALLISON HANES When he was at his home in the Eastern Townships, Mordecai Richler's movements were like clockwork. Every morning he would begin work in his third-floor study at 8:30 a.m. At 9:20 sharp he would head to the Austin corner grocery store to pick up his mail, returning at 10 sharp. He would work until noon, take a lunch break, then push on through until 4 p.m., at which point he would drop in on one of the nearby villages' taverns. Thu 7/5/01 Eccentricity shortage hits Montreal By: MIKE BOONE At the risk of being indicted for felonious Old Fartism (my lawyer says he can plea-bargain it down to misdemeanour nostalgia), may I suggest that our great city is running out of legendary Montrealers. When Mordecai Richler slipped this mortal coil on Tuesday, he joined a list of recently deceased colourful Montreal characters that includes Pierre b Thu 7/5/01 Memories of a maker of folklore By: BILL BROWNSTEIN The Gazette We were pumped for the social/cultural highlight of the year in Montreal: the annual jazz-fest blowout on Tuesday night. The plan was to sip plonk and to catch, along with 100,000 other free spirits, some Turkish funk and whirling dervishes. Instead, the sudden death of Mordecai Richler tossed us all into the mourning mode - again. Yet another Montreal original has passed on. This is becoming both alarming and depressing. In the last few years, we've lost Nick Auf der Maur, Rocket Richard, Pierre Trudeau and, now, Richler - icons who have not only helped shape Montreal but have also given it the character for which the city is renowned around the world. Wed 7/4/01 CANADA MOURNS MORDECAI RICHLER The death of Canadian novelist Mordecai Richler has evoked a huge response across the country, with high-profile reports on television, radio and newspapers. Richler died Monday of cancer at the age of 70. RICHLER REMEMBERED AS GREAT WRITER The family of Mordecai Richler says private funeral services for the author will be held at the end of this week.

© 2001 by David T. Nicholson

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