Maclean's People: A Gallery of Canadian Greats

Pauline Carey is an actor, playwright, and fiction writer. She is the
author of Magic and What’s in a Name?

Edward VIII seems a strange choice to include under “Canadian
greats.” But, questions aside, every reader will find something to
enjoy in this sampling of Maclean’s profiles, covering the period from
1911 (Sir Maxwell Aitken, later Lord Beaverbrook) to 1999 (Wayne
Gretzky), and many will be enlightened and even surprised along the way.


The book opens with Blair Fraser’s moving recollection of Mackenzie
King, whom he knew, and the portraits of other politicians frequently
offer insights from early careers that are intriguing when read today.
Sports stories include a 1928 piece on Percy Williams, who won the
sprint double at that year’s Olympics; a 1913 piece on the Molson
family focuses on John Molson’s building of the first North American
steamship; Donald Sutherland is featured as “Funniest Film Actor
Ever”; and a 1983 piece by Gillian MacKay tells how Alex Colville
walked into the Louvre as a young man and saw that it was possible to
make great art.

Much of the variety in the collection comes from the selection of
profile writers. Roger Lemelin writes in 1951 of his neighbor, a mass
murderer; Judith Krantz portrays Norman Jewison as he directs his second
movie; Marjorie Harris in 1968 highlights the poet in Gordon Lightfoot;
and a 1977 piece on George Chuvalo by Barbara Amiel catches him a year
before retirement. Then there are the profiles written by the subjects
themselves: Stephen Leacock on “Memories and Miseries,” Wayne and
Shuster on what they insist are their humdrum lives, and Mordecai
Richler in 1961 having his own brand of fun as he learns how to write a
film script.

Each profile has one black-and-white photograph. The book’s first
five sections cover people involved in politics, sports, business,
entertainment, and arts and letters. A grab-bag final
segment—“Rogues, Royals, Heroes and Heroines”—includes profiles
of four royals and a 1974 piece on Margaret Trudeau written by June
Callwood that charmingly records the woman who could talk about love on
the campaign trail and who once upon a time was our own princess.