Multi-talented broadcaster dies

Bill Phillips, whose rich baritone voice was familiar to radio audiences for almost 50 years, has died after a 10-year battle with multiple myeloma. He was 83. Phillips began his career at CJIB Vernon in 1956, with Jack Pollard and Gil Seabrook. He moved next to CBC radio in Vancouver. In 1960, he was the principal newscaster on CHAN-TV (later BCTV and now Global), Vancouver’s first private television station. While at CHAN, he was a regular performer in comedic sketches on Monty McFarlane’s late night variety show.

While associated with various radio stations in Vancouver, Victoria, the Okanagan and Winnipeg, Phillips was best known for his years at CHQM Vancouver, as part of the 1960s-70s group that included Bill Bellman, Terry Garner, Maurice Foisy and Jurgen Gothe. Later he would work with Gothe on the CBC series The Dog and Trombone.

In addition to collaborating on scripts, he played the continuing role of Hap Haffner, bartender at a Viennese pub in the Mozart era. In this same period, Phillips was a member of Canada’s first think tank, organized by Frank (Dr. Tomorrow) Ogden.

He worked with CHQM until the mid-1990s, when he relocated to Naramata, and later Okanagan Falls, where he continued to write, accept occasional voicing assignments, promote British Columbia wines, and work on various Internet projects.

Fluently multilingual, Phillips was also a multi-instrumentalist, who had played, among other instruments, alto saxophone in a dance band that included Ed Bickert, tuba with the South Okanagan Concert Band, and bass with the Kettle Valley Brakemen.

He retained his keen intelligence and wit to the end; regarding himself, and others of his vintage, he said, “We’ve arrived at the second last reel.”

“We were in a Norm Foster play together,” recalled actor Eric Hanston, a past-president of the Penticton Arts Council. “Bill played my father and Bill’s daughter Christa played my sister. It was a great show. Bill was a wonderful man and he will be missed.”

Phillips is survived by Margaret, his wife of 58 years; children Paul and Christa; and sister Marilyn Brickenden.