Featuring a sampling of my articles:
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Marilyn
Denis Cover Story
Marilyn Denis
The neighbourhood’s most energetic early riser on family, friendship and her favourite way to spend February 14th
by Joyce Singer-D'Aprile for
the Midtown Post
Sitting in a Citytv boardroom, Denis animatedly holds court, dishing on a wide array of topics.“They say Toronto is a cold city, but I disagree,” she says. “They just let you find your own way.” Born in Edmonton and raised in Pittsburgh, the 2007 Gemini Award–winning host jump-started her media career as the first female DJ in Moscow … Moscow, Idaho, that is.
Moving back to Canada, Denis then earned her stripes covering traffic, weather, sports and entertainment in Calgary. But she finally struck ratings gold with the audience in Toronto when she relocated to the city and started talking about it on the air.
Now, if all goes well, the host will move into her custom Midtown home in May. She had originally planned on buying a home, until she received guidance from trusted friends.“I called Brian Gluckstein and then I called my bank. Apparently they gave the thumbs up and now I’m happy (not obsessed),” she says. “Enter John Zanini, from Dunpar Developments, who strongly suggested to build new. So that is what we’re in the middle of doing right now.” With these all-stars — Zanini is building, Gluckstein is helping with the design, and Ramsin Khachi (a CityLine regular) is overseeing the project — her new home is sure to be exactly what she’s looking for.
Denis says she found her new property on a sunny March day as she was scoping out a place recommended by her realtor.“I pulled in and thought ‘this is gorgeous: The trees are touching each other. It’s a beautiful neighbourhood with sidewalks and lovely homes,’” she says. “But then I got irritated. I thought, ‘What has my realtor done? She’s put me in a neighbourhood that I can’t afford! It’s like shopping for a pair of shoes where they show you every shade except the colour you want.’” But she was drawn back for a second look and fell in love.
“Every couple of days I go over and check on the house. We have meetings and stuff,” she says with a laugh. But more importantly, she’s taking power walks through the neighbourhood. She says she’s looking forward to shopping at Summerhill Market (even though she’s never been there). “I’ve lived in Toronto, working at CHUM for 20 years, but I’ve never walked down Yonge Street. I go straight to Citytv!” However, her soon-to-be neighbours shouldn’t worry about being mentioned on-air. For her viewers and listeners, Scarborough is still home. “It’s just too much information,” she says.
“Toronto is fantastic!” she raves. “If I could’ve picked up my neighbours and moved them next door to my new house, I would have. It was a great, great place to raise my son Adam.” Proud Momma Marilyn says she and Adam do fun things together, like going to concerts and HMV. “He’s a nice young man,” she says. “The joy of my life. But when he finds a girlfriend, he’s going to dump me like a hot potato!”
While her son may have his romantic priorities, Denis likes to keep her Valentine’s Day simple. As she mentioned on CityLine, “I’m getting together with a bunch of friends for dinner. Actually I’m perfectly happy staying at home.”
As a youngster Denis called Pittsburgh home and from a young age was transfixed by the radio.“I was that kid with a transistor radio stuck in my ear for years and years and years,” she says, “and radio has never left my side. I’ve been in radio for 30 years, but I wouldn’t be happy anymore just in radio. I like doing both radio and television.”
Though Denis got her start in radio, she is most recognized for her award-winning TV show, but says she would never give up her radio gig.“I never went into radio thinking I’d get a television show. I never went to the University of Idaho thinking, ‘I’m going to be on TV!’ Never.… I liked the radio because you could be behind the microphone and nobody could see you, and you could create, and you could write stories, and people could colour in their own pictures.”
The brass at CHUM evidently had a clear picture of the new star on their hands.
“The group of media people here in Toronto is such a small group that if anybody loses their job we feel their pain,” she says. “There are egos in this business, but everyone in Toronto has been so gracious to me. I find a great community with them, and they are very supportive. I roasted John Derringer a few weeks ago and it was my pleasure.”
Denis is overjoyed that her new soon-to-be Rosedale digs are so close to work. “I’ve bought myself three more hours in my day! I don’t have to get up at 3:30 anymore. Now I wake up at 4:30 a.m. You don’t know how heavenly that is.”
She’s says she’s looking forward to the day there’s a really bad snowstorm and she won’t have to think about driving on Highway 401. “I’ve done that trek for so long: CHUM, City, meetings, workout, go home, and by the time I got home to Scarborough, it was 4:30 p.m. Now I’ve got more leeway.”
A pragmatist, Denis says the secret to her longevity is plotting her career in five-year spurts.
“Wherever I’ve lived, its fallen into place because its been driven by the career — or the child. I could have moved downtown 10 years ago, but I didn’t want to pull Adam away from school, his friends and his hockey. You’ve gotta make your sacrifices for the kids.”
But as Adam prepares to go off to university, Denis is focusing on herself and her career. Something kind of scary in today’s media world.“Media is a funny business. You can be here today and gone tomorrow. I joke with my parents: ‘Don’t sell the house in Calgary. I might be coming back.’ Things are very unsettled right now. But it’s very exciting.”
But Denis, arguably Toronto’s favourite on-air personality, should have no fear. CityLine will soon feature a new, expanded set; ratings are up; and the popular program is still going strong. Denis says she will continue interviewing such luminaries as Paul Anka, Michael Bublé, Jamie Oliver and Harrison Ford.
“Change doesn’t scare me,” she insists. “Last year at this time I had a house and a cottage mortgage free. This year I have a condo, a house and a cottage not mortgage free and a kid that’s going to university. Talk about throwing everything up in the air! Sometimes you gotta change it up.”
Perhaps her biggest change occurred a few years ago when she travelled to Mali, Africa, as a national spokesperson for Plan Canada. She met one of her two foster children and became an ambassador on the AIDS epidemic. “It was a life-changing experience,” she says.
While Denis may not yet know her way around Toronto’s tonier neighbourhoods, she has a good excuse. She’s a busy gal. But now, she’s making a concerted effort to acclimatize herself to her new neighbourhood.
After a journey that took her from Edmonton to Pittsburgh to Moscow to Yorkville, we’re glad Marilyn Denis has found her way home to Toronto.
Updated & reprinted in the Midtown Post, Feb. 2008. Originally published in the North Toronto Post, September 2006.
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Mag
Ruffman Cover Story
Mag Ruffman
The Richmond Hill 'heroine of how-to TV' spills open her amazing tool box of success
IT’S
DAUNTING to know that Mag Ruffman is not only a cottage industry
— she could also build the cottage! Born and bred in Richmond Hill, the
actress, author, columnist, comedienne and home improvement guru invited
my husband and I to drop by her picturesque farmhouse for a chat on a
recent Sunday afternoon. Upon arrival we were greeted by a beaming Mag,
her distinguished looking hubby Daniel Hunter, and their three adorable
felines —Buffy, Zephyr, and Lily the barnyard cat. To welcome us,
Daniel, the family chef, rustled up a heaping platter of yummy, warm
cranberry scones.“My husband is quite the Renaissance man!” Mag
enthused.
Ruffman is instantly recognizable as Olivia King Dale from
Disney’s Emmy-award-winning Avonlea series. Nimble with power
tools, she’s hosted two humorous how-to shows A Repair To Remember,
and Anything I Can Do, served up with huge dollops of humour. And
let’s not forget the quirky relationship show Men On Women.
A few years ago, while vacationing in California, on
hiatus from filming Avonlea, Ruffman met a handsome American
carpenter at a Halloween party. Three weeks later they eloped to Reno.
What could have been a whirlwind romance became a merger of kindred
spirits. Eventually they became contracting partners.
After several years of commuting back and forth across the
border, they finally moved to Canada, eventually settling in with her
parents in her old stomping grounds north of the city.
“My mom had lived happily in Richmond Hill since she was
just a toddler,” she says fondly. “Except for four years, I’ve spent
my life here as well. When we moved in with my mom in Richmond Hill, we
lived in her basement. We were trying to produce 55 episodes a year. It
was mental!”
Ruffman has fond memories of growing up in the 905.“My Avonlea co-star R.H. Thompson and I both
went to McConaghy, and to Richmond Hill High School,” she says.
“He’s 10 years older than me so I didn’t really know him. But he
lived three doors down from me… and I had a huge crush!”
As Daniel and Mag continue our tour of their homestead,
we’re enthusiastically shown rooms in various stages of progress. Some
are in the midst of being painted, while some are being renovated, like
the horse stalls, which are being converted into office space.
Ever the perfectionist, and honest to a fault, Ruffman
endearingly points out flaws, such as a few imperceptible scratches on the
glass of her picture windows. All we can see is the breathtaking view of
their abundant meadow, which stretches to the horizon. It’s easy to fall
head over heels for the place! On the coffee table there’s a bowl filled
with inspirational notes.
“We read and discuss a few each morning,” Ruffman
says. “It’s a positive way to begin the day.”
We bask momentarily in this idyllic setting… until
Ruffman insists we lick her lamps. Huh? Well it makes perfect
sense, once she explains that they are made from 250-million-year-old
salt-crystals, from the dinosaur era no less! And yes, my husband and I
can vouch that they’re very salty-tasting.
Daniel and Mag are thrilled with their workroom/tool shed,
which they admit is larger than their first apartment. Then we finally
head across the field to her inner sanctum — her writing room — to
chat. It’s a tiny, rustic cabin, complete with a wood stove. Mag can
often be found tucked away here, enjoying her solitude. She prefers no
modern accoutrements, like a telephone or computer, and writes on a
notepad.“I think better when I write in longhand, it just
flows,” she says.
Currently, Ruffman is penning a biography of her dear
friend Steve Smith (of the Red Green Show).“Weirdly enough, I had a recurring dream about this,”
she says of her new project. “I said to myself, ‘Oh well, why fight
it?’”
They go for relaxing boat rides, while Smith, now retired,
records his thoughts on her tape recorder.“He’s such a philosopher, and he has a very unusual
approach to life, which I think is quite valid, and also quite helpful to
people,” she says. “It’s a fun project. I’m glad I didn’t dream
about Meatloaf!”
Ruffman says that Daniel, who now manages her career, is
actually the visionary in the family company. “He has all these great
ideas. I just do the creative stuff. He does the producing and budgeting.
He works the cameras and does all the editing. He’s an amazing force of
nature.”
One imagines the light bulb moment when it occurred to
them to parlay her experience in the entertainment industry, her workshop
skills and her ease with power tools, plus her zany sense of humour, into
a marketable package for television, Internet and print media. Tool
girl was born!
Due to popular demand, Ruffman will be releasing her
series Anything I Can Do on DVD this month. “We wouldn’t do
it if people didn’t want it,” she says. “I’ve been inundated with
requests from fans, from as far away as Japan.”
According to Ruffman, the DVD should be available on
amazon.com and, hopefully, in ma and pa shops around Richmond Hill.“I’m also really keen on seeing how-to videos on the
Internet,” she says. “That’s a big focus for us.”
Ruffman is concurrently working on a new instructional
book, 67 Ways To Feel Good About Your Home.“I was going to call it 67 Things You Are Going To
Have To Do To Your Home Eventually — So Why Put It Off?” she says
with a laugh.
Her first book was a primer for repair-project newbies
entitled How Hard Can It Be?
“There’s also my lullaby album for charity,” she
says. “I have been gradually amassing a bevy of celebrities to help me
sing my way through lullabies from all over the world, for all ages.
I’ve always liked to go to sleep to music, but it’s usually too
uptempo. These will be soothing. Who wants a freakin’ bluegrass number
right as you’re hitting REM sleep?”
Not satisfied with just these endeavours, Ruffman also has
a line of ergonomic tools that she’s currently designing for women.Other ventures keep her in touch with her fans, as well as
with her Avonlea chums. Her mother passed away in February, and
three weeks later, Mag found herself required to keep a prior commitment
to give a speech on relationships, to singles, at the Royal Ontario
Museum. Still emotionally raw, she says, “I think it was probably the
most inspired I’ve ever been.”
Since it was a tremendous success, she was invited to host
a reunion at the ROM with her Avonlea castmates. Thinking it was
just a small matter of rounding up the headliners, she accepted. When
co-star Jackie Burroughs insisted that everyone be invited to participate,
the project grew exponentially. Cast members flew in from all over the
globe.“It was truly moving,” Ruffman says. “It’s nice to
know the show still means so much.”
While Ruffman clearly enjoys riding the wave of celebrity,
she’s more inclined to be found curled up with a glass of white wine in
front of the fireplace with her husband and pets. Or else hunkered over
her workbench, power tools in hand, tackling her next project.
“I know it’s odd for us to start taking out walls and
putting stuff up,” she admits. “I guess we’re an unusual couple.
It’s how we relax.”
Originally published in the Richmond Hill Post, Oct. 2006
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CelebriChat
with Mira Furlan
 |
| Mira Furlan & Joyce |
by Joyce Singer-D’Aprile
Many
stars give you pre-fabricated blather when you chat with them. Not Mira
Furlan. She is a refreshing straight-shooter, who speaks passionately from
the heart, and with a sexy, delicious accent to boot!
Fans remember Mira fondly as the star of Babylon 5. Currently she's wowing
audiences with her powerhouse performance as the 'crazy French lady' who
pops up on intermittent episodes of LOST. European fans know her as a huge
star (think Meryl Streep) in the Former Yugoslavia.
When
the war occurred in Yugoslavia she became hounded by the press there as a
pariah because she was married to someone from the 'other' side. The media
wanted her to stand up and take sides publicly. She refused. It tore her
heart to see instant enmity between friends and neighbours, when all she
wanted to do was live and let live, love and let love, and for the madness
to stop. When it became intolerable, they packed their bags and moved to
the USA, to escape that nightmare. Mira, a nobody in Tinseltown, bravely
and humbly forged a new career, going on auditions, and slowly
reinventing herself.
Luckily
she scored a co-starring role on the popular Science Fiction/Fantasy show
Babylon 5, and for a while she was back in orbit, a celestial being, a
star once again, even if it was only for die hard SF fans. Now she is back
on the tube, and on the mega-hit LOST, as the eccentric French hermit,
Danielle Rousseau.
While this show has broader
appeal than Babylon 5, (being less cartoonish, and more of a phantasmagorical
mystery), her character only
makes occasional appearances. Professionally it's been somewhat of a
rollercoaster ride for Mira.
We discussed the vagaries of the acting
profession and its effect on the ego. Mira confides, "I'm not a
Saint. I don't have vanity, but you have to have an ego. You want
attention, you want respect, you want feedback. And the profession is such
that unfortunately, you depend on the judgment of others. That's the worst
part of it. The cursed part."
But
she's got this great gig on LOST, that's a blessing, right? "That
could change tomorrow, with the script. We really have no clue," Mira
shrugs. "It's hard not to become cynical after awhile, as an actor.
It's like any profession - they hire you, they pay you."
Don't
the perks make it all worthwhile? She laughs, "Yeah, they pick you up
in this glamorous limousine which doesn't mean anything to me. I
need other things..."
Like protection
from the elements.
One particularly cold and rainy day on the set, while Mira was drenched
and shivering, Josh Holloway (Sawyer) stood up and
fervently insisted on giving her his seat. (Only the stars of the show have
personalized director's chairs to relax on during the long breaks between 'takes').
Meanwhile
Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly (Kate), scrounged up some raingear to keep
Mira warm. Mira raves about her LOST pals, "Evangeline is genuinely lovely, and Josh
is a true Southern gentleman!" Originally published online July 2006
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Mythbusting:
My article on behalf of the Society of Permanent Cosmetic Professionals
Joyce Singer, guest columnist, relates her experience of visiting a permanent cosmetics convention and how it changed her opinion of the industry.
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