Winnipeg and Zolf: A complex relationship

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/03/2011 (5511 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On the tough docks of Montreal in the 1960s, CBC reporter Larry Zolf — seeking a story on shady union leader, Hal Banks — approached a menacing stevedore with a microphone.

“Come any closer with that thing and I’ll break every bone in your body,” threatened the dockworker. “Start with my nose,” said Zolf, “and we’ll be here all day.”

That was Larry at his best — fearless and relentless journalist, bulbous-beaked jester, lightning wit. He was also a lifelong bearer of the spirit of his native turf, Winnipeg’s hard-scrabble North End. Zolf, who died last weekend at 76, had a complicated relationship with his hometown. (Lots in Larry’s life was complicated.) But Winnipeg mattered a lot to him; his years there were always on his mind. Proudly, defiantly Jewish, he brimmed with stories of that volatile, multi-ethnic world where his father, Falek Zolf, was a leading socialist intellect — and where so many fiery talents got their start. He liked the story I wrote on him in the Free Press in the late SSRq70s and he liked my surname. “The Jews and the Ukies always fought side by side in the North End,” he told me. (That I was half-WASP and from Riverview, he was happy to ignore.)

In Toronto, we both worked at the CBC and in the same building, and became friendly for a while. I took that as a great compliment. Zolf was, after all, a legend. Most anyone who remembers CBC-TV when it was black and white can recall the scene of cabinet minister Pierre Sevigny thrashing Zolf with his cane on This Hour Has Seven Days. Larry had knocked on Sevigny’s door to probe rumours of the junior minister’s involvement with alleged spy and “party girl” Gerda Munsinger. Sevigny swung. Zolf kicked back at his shins. It was unforgettable television. Long before Rick Mercer and Mary Walsh, Larry brought the politically incorrect and impromptu to Canadian TV. Zolf also brought an academic’s mind and a vast, sweeping knowledge of Canadian history and culture to his work. And he was the one media member that the imperious and formidable Pierre Trudeau seemed to like. (Zolf wrote gags for Trudeau’s Press Club appearances and two books about the former PM.)

By the time I knew him, Zolf had disappeared from TV. (Sources said he’d developed terrible stage fright; his anxieties were also legend.) He was always on the phone, though, spreading and sharing gossip and rumours with his huge network of contacts nationwide. And he’d share delicious morsels with you — like which famous North End entertainer was called “Duddy the Liar” as a kid, or which Winnipeg multimillionaire could never win the approval of his socialist father. A favourite phone pal was Mira Spivak, whose beauty and brains he praised. Mira Spivak eventually represented Manitoba in Canada’s Senate. Zolf had fruitlessly campaigned to be a Senator for years (see his book Survival of the Fattest) but bore her no ill-will.

Winnipeg was always on Larry’s mind, but he dreaded the thought of returning, and seldom did. Maybe bridges had been burned. Maybe it just made him anxious. Once, when he knew I was heading back for a visit, he asked me to call his sister, Rose, and tell her he was doing all right. I did. It was a short, pleasant conversation. Larry was mighty pleased.

For years Zolf held forth nightly at a pub called The Hop and Grape, near the CBC’s current affairs headquarters at 790 Bay in Toronto. Then the CBC moved. So did Larry. In the Greek district in the east end, he made new, non-media friends, and married for a second time. He was frail this fall as he launched his last book, Dialectical Dancer, put together with his friend Barry Callaghan. Still, the great and the near-great turned up to pay tribute. He remained a writer, pundit and brilliant observer of the Canadian scene long after his TV glory days. For a taste of the inimitable Zolf, read one of his slim, sharp books, or visit cbc.ca for his famous interview with Germaine Greer, where he challenges the famous feminist for her “bourgeois” perceptions.

His passing drew glowing notices praising his irreverence, his originality, his wit. Not much was said about the Winnipeg in him. But his friends know how much the city meant to him. On cbc.ca, reader comments range from “he was one of the greats” to “who?” Here’s hoping plenty of Winnipeggers salute Zolf as the former.

 

Peter Feniak is a Winnipeg-bred, Toronto-based writer/broadcaster.