IT’S TIME MONTREAL PAID TRIBUTE TO ‘THE WIZARD’
It’s hard to visit Place des Arts without thinking about late writer, actor, impresario
When I was growing up in the 1960s and exploring a whole new world — culture — Place des Arts seemed like the centre of the universe.
No one I knew had ever been there, at least not until I went to university, and my ignorance only added to its magic.
I still remember the first time I saw the building. It was like a believer seeing a church. I wanted to be part of that. Not on stage, but in the audience; I wanted to see and hear and enjoy. The newspapers advertised various events, many of which I was aware of for two reasons: Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson. My family loved the former. I only liked the bits when there was a new British band or those wonderful, live-TV moments when an elephant defecated on stage. Carson, on the other hand, I was addicted to. I watched Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show every night for many, many years.
When I read about Sammy Davis Jr. or Johnny Mathis or Harry Belafonte or Ray Charles coming to Montreal, I knew who they were and I wanted to see them. What I happened to notice early on was that the same person “presented” all these people: Sam Gesser.
Gesser became part of the magic spell of “entertainment.” At the centre of what was a kind of Oz, he was the wizard.
There almost always seemed to be a Sam Gesser show happening. Some I had to find out about at the library: Nana Mouskouri and those glasses, Maria Callas, the Red Army Choir, the Bolshoi Ballet — it went on and on.
Liberace! Him I knew, from TV: his candles, his brother George.
Later, when I got to know him, Gesser would regale me with stories about visits to Liberace’s palace in Las Vegas.
It took a long time for Gesser and me to cross paths, though. Too long. I would see him and his wife, Ruth, at various events; nobody went out to more events, shows, screenings and openings than Gesser, who was out at something virtually every night of his life.
We finally met in one of those weird, unpredictable ways. I was producing a film set in wartime Marseille, and there was a part that was written as “Old Jew.”
It was a non-speaking role. In the film, Varian’s War, the character is knocked to the ground by a Blackshirt. Varian Fry, the hero of the film, approaches to help and the “Old Jew” shakes his head to warn him away.
The casting agent, Vera Miller of Elite Casting, called me and said, “How about Sam Gesser for the old Jew?” What? Really? She explained that Gesser was a not-so-secret ham of the kosher variety and loved little parts in movies. I said, “Yes please, and ask him if he would like to have lunch the day we shoot.”
That was the beginning of a friendship that lasted until he died in 2008, way too young, way too soon. Often, he would call me to go have lunch and would always say, “Got any parts for old Jews?”
Over the years, he slowed down his impresario operations, but kept his office at his beloved Place des Arts. He started writing plays and film scripts, acting as much as he could — at one point he was thrilled to see four or five of “his movies” in the video store near his cottage in the Laurentians.
To this day, I cannot go to Place des Arts without thinking about the man who, to me, was a pillar of that building and culture in Quebec.
How fantastic it would be if Place des Arts decided to name one of its theatres in Gesser’s honour. What an admirable birthday candle for the city.
There is already the perfect place, la Cinquième salle.
Is that the best we can do, call a theatre by a number? Salle Sam Gesser. Now that’s a name. It works both ways, in that it honours the honouree and the institution. It would be a well-deserved thank you to a man who gave so much and never sought recognition.
In 2003, Gesser wrote and produced a play, Dancing to Beethoven. It featured a cast of blind actors. Fittingly, it premièred at Place des Arts in the Cinquième salle.