THE ROAST OF TIERNEY
Ego sacrifice for a good cause
Apart from his many other accomplishments, Kevin Tierney is an excellent cook. Who can forget the Montreal filmmakerwriter’s Indonesian Chicken Hot Pot? Certainly not his former neighbours in N.D.G., whose home, along with his own, he almost torched in the preparation.
Seriously, few can touch the Irish-rooted Tierney when it comes to concocting everything from sweet and sour pork to, yes, chopped liver. And Tierney can roast a leg of lamb with the best of them.
Ah, but Tierney may soon be able to empathize with the latter critter as he will be the sacrificial lamb in a Friars Club-style roast May 5 at Espace Knox. Tierney has volunteered to get royally skewered in this Infinithéâtre fundraiser.
Tierney follows another noted Montrealer roasted at an Infinithéâtre event, albeit 25 years later. The theatre’s director, Guy Sprung, organized a roast of Mordecai Richler at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in 1993.
“Hopefully we won’t be waiting another 25 years for our next roast,” says Sprung, who recalls that Tierney once played a Westmount mayor in an Infinithéâtre production.
“We sought out Kevin for this one because he has done so much for the arts community here. Still, this roast should be juicy because Kevin never pulls his punches.”
Celeb roasting is, of course, one of the few blood sports still legit.
Comedy aficionados consider Jeff Ross the ultimate roastmaster. He has cut up folks at our Just for Laughs fest as well as the likes of Pamela Anderson and Charlie Sheen on the tube. But Ross saved his most inspiring roasting for Montreal native William Shatner years ago: “You’ve let yourself boldly go … When did you go from Captain Kirk to Cap’n Crunch? … I wish that just once your spaceship could have landed on a planet with an acting school.”
However, many concur that the late Milton Berle, one of the original Friars Club roasters, was in a class all his own. To wit, his classic jabbing of Arnold Schwarzenegger: “I’ve been recognized as one of the great chefs in Beverly Hills. Over the past 40 years, I’ve sautéed Swedish meatballs. I’ve fricasseed French frogs’ legs. I’ve fried Portuguese suckling
pig. But this is the first time in my career I have ever roasted an Austrian a--hole!”
It might be hard for the Tierney roasters to get that nasty. But it won’t be for a lack of trying. Among others on the dais for the event will be Letterkenny and 19-2 star Jared Keeso as well as Montreal Gazette columnist and filmmaker Josh Freed and (in the interests of full disclosure) me.
Freed and I go back many decades with Tierney and will be sharing memories he might want to forget. Hello, Rock Demers’s The Tadpole and the Whale!
But we also know the roastee has the last word, and let’s just say the acerbic Tierney is a masterful spewer of venom.
Tierney, whose arts column for the Gazette is on hiatus, can also expect a rough ride from the evening ’s roastmaster, his son Jacob, an award-winning actor, writer, director and the co-creator of Letterkenny. Apart from Tierney’s wife, Terry, and daughter Brigid, who knows his father’s foibles better?
“There is history here, so I’ll certainly be doing some skewering,” pledges Jacob, a one-time child actor who went on to write and direct such films as The Trotsky and Good Neighbours.
“Roasters should bear in mind that the Irish are famous for holding a grudge. As some of us know, Kevin’s tongue is as ferocious as anyone’s.”
But Jacob is quick to point out his dad has achieved goals here that few anglos have, although he took a circuitous route into the business.
After completing university degrees in education, communications and theatre, Tierney went on teach English in Chad, Algeria and China.
He got his feet wet in film working as a publicist, then as an exec with Rock Demers’s production house Les productions La Fête. He went on to produce such acclaimed TV miniseries as Barnum, Bonanno: The Story of a Godfather, Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City as well as a bio doc on Pierre Trudeau.
Apart from producing such films as Varian’s War, Twist and The Trotsky, Tierney is best known for the hit satire Bon Cop, Bad Cop. The bilingual Genie Award-winner, which Tierney produced and co-wrote, is among the most successful Canadian films ever made. Tierney later made his directing debut in the comedy French Immersion.
Tierney also served as former head of the Cinémathèque québécoise’s board of directors and was one of the winners of the Sheila and Victor Goldbloom Distinguished Community Service Awards.
But enough with the sweet stuff, time to get down and dirty.
This roast should be juicy because Kevin never pulls his punches.