‘They treated him like he was a hockey star’
Actor became Saturday night TV fixture with his ‘Happy Motoring’ catchphrase,
He was Canada’s original television pitchman; a fixture on
Hockey Night in Canada for almost two decades where his “Happy Motoring ” catch phrase made him as famous as the players on the ice.
Murray Westgate — an actor known for his friendly smile and reassuring baritone — died at Sunnybrook Veterans Centre on Monday.
He celebrated his 100th birthday there in April.
From the black-and-white infancy of Canadian television in 1952, Westgate was a Saturday night presence in his shiny brimmed hat and black bow tie, talking about Esso products between periods. With his folksy charm, the Regina native was so trustworthy as a TV auto mechanic, viewers were convinced he was the real deal. They would stop him on the street to seek advice on maintaining their vehicles.
Westgate’s daughter, Linda Ayoung-Chee, said it was quite humorous because “pumping gas was the best you could get from him. Cars were not his forte.”
Although he was a successful, serious actor, Westgate played the Esso station attendant until 1968. He came out of retirement at age 72 to reprise the role for commercial spots that ran during the 1991 Stanley Cup playoffs. In the early days he was even part of the hockey conversation, on set introducing the Hot Stove panel, chiming in on occasion.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said at the time of his 100th birthday, noting his fond memories of listening to the Maple Leafs on the radio while living on the Prairies.
“It was amazing to then grow up and be on the Hot Stove. They were great guys. “I really enjoyed it.” Hockey historian and broadcaster Brian McFarlane did appearances with Westgate at the Canadian National Exhibition and remembers the actor as a “genuine down-to-earth guy” at ease meeting the public.
“They treated him like he was a hockey star,” he said.
McFarlane is convinced Westgate could have been a much bigger luminary in the acting world if he’d moved to the United States.
“He could have easily gone to Hollywood and been a success. He was a very good actor,” McFarlane says. “He chose to live in Canada. I think he was happy with the CBC and the hockey connection.”
Westgate and his wife — actress Alice Hill, who died in 1983 — kept Toronto as their base and his acting roles included everything from the prime min- ister of Canada to the U.S. president to Sir Frederick Banting, one of the discoverers of insulin. He won an ACTRA award as best supporting actor for playing a farmer in the CBC production Tyler in 1979. Then, in 1988, he was nominated for a Genie as best supporting actor in Blue City Slammers.
Westgate, also a talented graphic artist, was inducted into the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2002.
A serviceman in more ways than one, Westgate was a telegraphist in the Canadian navy during the Second World War, despite battling seasickness.
“It would take about five days to cross the Atlantic. I was seasick as hell at the beginning,” he once explained.
“You get over it and you can do your work, but you’re always feeling woozy.”
Modest and self-effacing, Westgate once said people in the navy understood his situation. But it was tough when he once took a passenger ship from England to Northern Ireland.
“I was sick as a dog, wearing a uniform sitting with ordinary citizens in a ship — that embarrassed me.”
He spent six years in the navy, three on watch for submarines while escorting supply ships to the front. Twice after he left a ship, it was torpedoed and sunk on its next trip.
Ayoung-Chee said it reached the point where the other sailors didn’t want her father to leave. “He became the lucky charm.” In retirement, Westgate spent as much time as he could at his Georgian Bay cottage, most of which he built himself. There he indulged what became his great passion in life — sailing.