The General Star

Whatever happened to Beth Manley? She worked the overnight shift at (formerly) bilingual Montreal radio station CKVL. Here’s a story about her from a local paper. I like the reference to drunks. And what was that traveler up to, hooking up with not one but three female tourists? To all those with a torch (or a highball) to carry, I dedicate this recycled feature story to you.

City Like Montreal Is Lonely Place, Beth Tries to Make It Friendlier

The Herald, Montreal, Wednesday, August 1, 1956

by GEORGE ABBOTT

No loneliness can match that bred on solitary confinement in a big city apartment and Montreal, like all big cities, harbors a huge throng of lonely hearts which couldn’t be more unhappy were they banished to the solitude of a prairie, a desert or an Arctic waste.

Maybe it’s the presence of so many people who remain total strangers. Or maybe it’s the shock of finding yourself friendlss in the place where you least expect to be lonely.

But the lonesome ones — the small town folk who knew only homes filled with voices and laughter, the old and infirm banished away in rooms and basements, the torch carriers and others who are here in their untold hundreds.

Top authority for this is Beth Manley, Montreal disc jockey who caters to the lonely hearts with a program that runs midnight till 4:30 am five mornings a week from Radio Station CKVL.

“This town harbors hundreds of victims of worry, despair and insomnia,” Miss Manley says. “Hundreds more are just plain lonely.

“They phone in night after night, not necessarily because they want something, but frequently just because they need someone to chat with.

“They’ve got to get it off their chest, and I gather some pretty grim tales in consequence,” she says. “But I’ve always maintained a strict rule of forgetting everything they tell me.”

Montreal’s overnight disc jockey has doubled as a personal adviser, an authority on domestic problems and ailments, frequently as a philosopher, sometimes as a diplomat and at least once as a matrimonial counsellor.

Hundreds of Miss Manley’s callers are night shift workers. Hundreds more are the wives sitting up for them to come home. Lonely wives, she reports, donate many of the prizes offered on CKVL’s lonely hearts show.

Then there are the torch carriers, served up with special discs at 4 am nightly — “Torch Time.” They show appreciation by phoning in to say the tunes and sentiments havce brought them solace. Many send small gifts, too.

Most of them Miss Manley has never met and doesn’t ever expect to meet. It’s the same with other lonely folk, the widows and widowers, the lone tourists and the travelers.

There was the lonesome serviceman from St. Petersburg, Fla., who had a memorable vacation in Montreal because he met three lonseome girls from Philadelphia, thanks to an interchange of messages over the torch carrier’s mike.

Miss Manley remembers Gordie and Jo-Anne. Jo-Anne liked Gordie up the street and wanted to date him. It all worked out after CKVL beamed a dedication tune at Gordie. The couple subesquently became engaged, finally married.

Beth Manley says she gets much fun from drunks who phone up in the dim hours calling for some fast music because “they wanna live a little.”

“Usually I tell them to have a drink for me and then I play something sweet and soft,” she says. “That makes them maudlin. But they call me back and tell me amid sobs just how much they liked it.”

A big number of the night session discs are dedication numbers and sometimes they’re directed at a distant loved one on the other side of the country.

But there was one dedication number that didn’t make the grade. An excited fan called up one night and asked Miss Manley to play a disc for Tony.

“By all means, but who is Tony?” she asked.

The breathless one: “She’s my German Shepherd dog. She’s just had four pups!”

Miss Manley doesn’t believe dedications are much consolation for German Shepherds.

But in the human realm, those overnight discs used to enliven lonely heards do an important job.

And she gets stacks of letters, countless messages and expressions of heartfelt thanks to prove it. For a big city can be one of the loneliest spots on earth.

1950s ckvl insomnia intoxication loneliness montreal Montreal history old time radion Philadelphia radio social trends solitude talk radio tourism womens issues1950s ckvl insomnia intoxication loneliness montreal Montreal history old time radion Philadelphia radio social trends solitude talk radio tourism womens issues

Montreal’s own William Shatner was making headlines for his acting chops 50 years ago this month. According to the online Canadian Encyclopedia, it was the year of his big break, “when he replaced Christopher Plummer on three hours’ notice in the role of Henry V, after Plummer was hospitalized.” (Plummer — who grew up in Montreal, attending the High School of Montreal — now called MIND High FACE, an arts-intensive public school (thanks for the correction, Kate M) — and learned his craft here, had made his big splash two years before in New York.)

You’ve got to hand it to him: he did very well for himself over the years — a Golden Globe award, a couple of Emmys (as well as three Emmy nominations in ‘06), plus his induction into the Television Hall of Fame. And he’s still going strong.

This Canadian Press item comes from the Montreal Herald, Wednesday, August 1, 1956.

His co-recipient of a 1956 Guthrie Award, Marie Day, is the daughter of a former Toronto mayor. She won for costume design. She is also a published author of children’s fiction.

Fittingly, the man who handed out the awards — Vincent Massey, who was the first Canadian-born vice-regal (i.e., the ceremonial representative of the British monarch to Canada) — just happened to be the brother of Raymond Massey, one of Canada’s greatest movie stars.

Tyrone Guthrie (after whom the award was named) was a pretty interesting chap, too. A legend of the British stage, he accepted an unlikely posting to Canada and helped build the Stratford festival into one of the world’s great Shakespearean attractions.

1950s drama montreal Montreal history Montreal Repertory Theatre movie stars MRT Quebec culture stage theatre1950s drama montreal Montreal history Montreal Repertory Theatre movie stars MRT Quebec culture stage theatre

Philippe Nicol, the guy on the right, did pretty well for himself — if you don’t mind living in a fishbowl. And maybe he — and his wife, Rose, on the left — didn’t mind. They billed themselves as Count and Countess Philippe Nicol. He grew to a height of three feet exactly. She was a handful of inches taller. (In their day, they were called midgets, a term that has been replaced by dwarves or little people) Here they are pictured at home in Montreal in the 1920s or ’30s. They lived at “the Midgets Palace” at 961 Rachel St. East, a home that the wealthy Mr. Nicol had adapted to the couple’s stature. The furniture was tiny, the grandfather clock (it’s at an Ontario museum now - link) was tiny, etc.

The house was, for many years, a popular stop on Montreal’s tourist circuit — even long after the original, famous residents were gone (Philippe died in 1940). A newspaper story of the late 1980s estimated that about 5,000 people a year paid $3.50 each to check out the rooms. (Doesn’t sound like a lot, when you divide by 365 days.)

Here’s the English-language portion of the commemorative pamphlet in full:

Cover
Page 2-3
Page 4-5
Page 6-7
Page 8-9
Page 10-11
Page 12-13
Pictures 1
Pictures 2
French cover

Philippe was born in 1881 in St. Henri de Levis, Quebec. His family were all of commonplace stature. At age three, his parents signed him up with various circuses that toured the world. He became associated with the Barnum and Bailey Circus where, I suppose, he was given a nickname to match that of the legendary General Tom Thumb (I wonder if they ever met). He was granted the right to keep proceeds from the sales of his picture, and did quite well by that — making more money on the pictures than on his handsome salary, apparently.
Here are some postcards from the Michel Bazinet Collection of the Quebec National Archives:

After the birth of Philippe, Jr.
Tourists gawk
The “Count and Countess” in the smoking room

I talked a bit about this place on CBC radio if you want to hear about it - link.

Here’s a link to the English-language pages of the website of l’Association québécoise des personnes de petite taille (which smartly translates to “the Quebec association for people of small stature.” )

dwarves midget palace midgets midgets palace montreal Montreal history Montreal in the 1930s tourism vintage advertisementsdwarves midget palace midgets midgets palace montreal Montreal history Montreal in the 1930s tourism vintage advertisements

She was born rich and endured her share of tragedy — she lost her only two brothers to the Great War. She was courageous enough to drive an ambulance in World War I. Injured, she returned home, never married, and was the last member of the pioneering Allan shipping clan. Today, the home she grew up in — Ravenscrag — is occupied by the Allan Memorial Hospital. Miss Allan lived in the coach house for many years and held lively meetings with theatre types, sinking her energy, money, connections and passion into the task of building a vital theatre industry in Montreal. She was synonymous with the Montreal Repertory Theatre (guys like William Shatner and Christoher Plummer passed through that outfit). She largely laid the groundwork for a great national theatre scene. Click here to read an article about Miss Allan that was published in the Montreal Daily Herald on Wednesday, May 10, 1933.

allan memorial allan shipping drama Montreal history Montreal Repertory Theatre MRT stage theatre World War Oneallan memorial allan shipping drama Montreal history Montreal Repertory Theatre MRT stage theatre World War One