‘Happy Motoring’ to TV pitchman
Murray Westgate performed Esso commercials at the dawn of hockey TV broadcasting Murray Westgate as the Esso man, circa 1960. HNIC produced a colouring book in the 1950s.
For almost two decades, he was part of Canada’s hockey heartbeat. On this day, however, Murray Westgate is just trying to keep the beat to “Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin’ ” in a musical therapy session at the Sunnybrook Veterans Centre.
Here he is part of the chorus, but back when Canadians gathered on Saturday nights to watch hockey in flickering black and white on a newfangled gizmo called television, he was one of the first stars of Hockey Night in Canada.
Westgate was there for the start of television in Canada in 1952. Now he is celebrating a milestone of his own; Westgate turns 100 on Monday.
“I’m pretty old,” he says with a deep-throated chuckle. “Time wears on, you know.”
It will be a quiet celebration: a few gifts, cake and an eventual visit from a group of NHL oldtimers — a worthy show of respect given Westgate’s historic place in broadcasting and the game.
“He was as popular, or maybe more so, than some of the players on the ice,” says hockey broadcaster, researcher and author Brian McFarlane. With a welcoming smile, friendly eyes and soothing baritone, Westgate was the nation’s original TV pitchman. Dressed as a neighbourhood Esso station attendant, a look completed with a crisp black bow tie and peaked cap, he extolled the virtues of Imperial Oil in live 90second commercials. He also introduced the Hot Stove League — the panel really did sit around a wood stove — and it wouldn’t have been viewed as unusual for him to become part of the hockey talk. He’d also do the sign-off at the end of the night.
Those broadcasts had about two million viewers each Saturday, remarkable for a country of about 14.5 million at the time.
With his catchphrase, “Happy motoring,” Westgate was a fixture on HNIC until 1968.
It was hokey — there was nev- er a smudge of grease to be seen — but viewers enjoyed the spots and they loved Westgate.
He was so folksy and trustworthy that strangers would stop him on the street to ask for help with their cars. They’d have to settle for an autograph. In truth, Westgate knew little about automobiles.
“People were convinced he owned a gas station, which was kind of amusing,” says his daughter, Linda Ayoung-Chee.
These days, Westgate’s memory flickers like those early TV shows. In conversation, he apologizes at times for his lack of recall on some topics. But he does clearly remember his good fortune at landing the HNIC job.
He was a huge hockey fan listening to the games on radio as a kid in Regina.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “It was amazing to then grow up and be on the Hot Stove. They were great guys. I really enjoyed it.”
McFarlane believes Westgate could’ve been a bigger star if he’d packed up his family — his wife, actress Alice Hall, died in 1983 — and set out for Hollywood “but maybe it was the Esso gig that gave him pause and maybe he thought he’d be better staying in Canada.”
Although he remained in Toronto, his daughter says, he was always seemed to have work.
“Ever since I can remember, he always had a script in his hand at home,” says AyoungChee.
And while Canadians of a certain age identify Westgate as the Esso man, he did his fair share of serious acting.
Among his roles were the prime minister of Canada, the U.S. president and Sir Frederick Banting, the co-discoverer of insulin. He was nominated for a Genie Award as best supporting actor in 1988 for Blue City Slammers and, in 1979, he won an ACTRA Award for a supporting role as a farmer in the CBC production Tyler. That earned him a personally signed letter from Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau that is framed on his bedroom wall at Sunnybrook.
“It did me all right,” says Westgate of the Imperial Oil opportunity on HNIC, which paid him $75 a show that first season. “That was a good job.”
Imperial Oil resurrected Westgate as the Esso man in 1991 for two 30-second ads that ran during the Stanley Cup playoffs. He was 72 and came out of retirement to film those bits. That was his last acting job.
At the music session, therapist Mike Brush has moved on to strumming Stompin’ Tom Connors’ “Hockey Song.” The perfect choice; it’s one of Westgate’s favourites.