STEVE FONYO AFTERWARD
30 years after his famous marathon, he is still running from demons
‘I’m very lucky to be alive. My voice has been affected. I have a problem with my balance, that’s about it. I have no memory of the stabbing whatsoever. It’s pretty awful. — Fonyo, on his recovery from a stabbing and home invasion last April
In March, Steve Fonyo awoke from a coma in a B.C. hospital with no idea why he was there.
Thirty years after his famous one-legged run across Canada and through his slowly clearing fog, he learned of the vicious home invasion a month before during which he was stabbed under the armpit, beaten on the head and left for dead. His recovery is a work in progress.
“I’m doing OK,” he says from his dilapidated temporary home in Surrey, B.C., his voice betraying the effect of brain injury. His speech is slurred, his words muddy, so unlike his precise, clipped enunciation before the attack.
“I’m very lucky to be alive. My voice has been affected. I have a problem with my balance, that’s about it. I have no memory of the stabbing whatsoever. None. It’s pretty awful. A really bad experience.”
Fonyo has woken up confused and frightened in hospital before. At the age of 12, he had his left leg amputated above the knee to prevent the spread of bone cancer.
Just six years after that surgery, he famously set off on his loping cross-Canada marathon to raise money for cancer research. His Journey for Lives campaign followed in the footsteps of Terry Fox, who won wide adoration for his doomed bid to do the same four years earlier. By completing his gruelling 14-month, 7,924-kilometre journey in 1985, Fonyo became one of the best-known Canadians, although he was dogged from the start by constant — unflattering — comparisons to Fox.
Face it, I was famous and I was on drugs, and I think that’s what people wanted to hear at the time. A famous person falling down, that’s what people want to hear. — Fonyo, on his very public struggles after completing his cross-Canada marathon in 1985
“I’ve had my ups and downs, I admit that,” Fonyo says in an interview. “Things did happen and it’s unfortunate but, it happened. No different from anybody’s, my life has its ups and downs, you know?”
Only Fonyo’s life is different. His ups reach higher and his downs dip lower, his fall magnified by the degree of his exaltation, his struggles more vivid because of his fame.
“Face it, I was famous and I was on drugs, and I think that’s what people wanted to hear at the time. A famous person falling down, that’s what people want to hear,” he says.
Now semi-homeless, mostly impecunious and facing unresolved criminal charges, he nevertheless remains determined, hopeful and blunt.
Fonyo’s current state is perfectly captured in a raw and fascinating documentary premièring Monday night at the Toronto International Film Festival. The movie, Hurt, follows a year in his oddly engrossing life, weaving past achievement with his current troubles, capturing the kind of footage reality-TV dreams of but rarely achieves.
“I wanted to do an honest film of my life,” he says when asked why he allowed such access to a life in tatters.
“I’m 50 years old now, I’m not a kid any more, right? I take the good with the bad. Maybe people will see the film and learn from it. It’s not right, but it’s what I went through.”
Fonyo was born June 29, 1965, to restaurant owners Steve and Anna.
“I was a regular, ordinary, average kid, whatever that means,” he says in the film. “Did a lot of water skiing, I was pretty athletic, I did a lot of skateboarding.”
When he was 12, he had a pain in his leg, then a small growth was found. He was in hospital after the biopsy, packed and ready to go home when his mother and father told him the news.
“My dad said that ‘ your leg has to come off.’ And I started laughing, ‘Yeah, right, sure, that’s funny, good one, thanks, Dad,’ ’’ he says.
But when his mom started weeping, reality hit. “And I realized, holy s---, he’s actually serious, right? Within 10 days after that, my leg was off.”
Fonyo and Fox were treated at the same hospital at the same time in 1980 after Fox was forced to abandon his Marathon of Hope by a recurrence of his cancer, but the two never met.
Fonyo, like almost everyone though, was acutely aware of him and his achievement.
“I got the idea from Terry Fox,” he says, but he insists his run was never a bid to finish what Fox started. His run was its own thing.
“I got the idea from him, I thought I’d try it out. I wanted to do something to help people and it turned out to be a success. That’s really about it.”
But Fonyo was always running in Fox’s shadow. His progress and personality — even his husky frame — were unflatteringly compared to Fox.
As his tortuous run continued westward, proving he was the real deal, accolades finally rolled in from service clubs and schools, towns and corporations. The cancer establishment embraced him.
When he passed Thunder Bay and crossed out of Ontario, beyond where Fox managed to make it, donations and crowds blossomed.
He was made an honorary convict at the maximumsecurity Saskatchewan penitentiary, and given a plaque and $1,608 in donations by the inmates. In Edmonton, almost 5,000 people joined him on a run and he was feted with a throaty rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone. As he neared the end, 20,000 cheered him at Vancouver’s B.C. Place stadium.
But even on the cusp of triumph he was decried by a columnist as “too tough, too defiant” for Canadians to love the way they love Fox. Fuelling his churlish image, Fonyo at first refused to lead a parade through his hometown of Vernon because he resented its lack of support at the start.
On May 29, 1985, at Mile 0 of the Trans-Canada Highway in Victoria, Fonyo ran down a red carpet to the beach and dipped his prosthetic leg into the Pacific, completing his gruelling run as eager news photographers waded waistdeep to capture the view from the water.
Today, marking the spot, there is a life-sized statue of a young, one-legged man running for cancer. It’s of Terry Fox.
Fonyo’s father once bitterly said, “Steve made one big mistake — he didn’t die.”
Fonyo, however, says he is not resentful of Fox.
“You know what? It doesn’t bother me one bit. After all, the guy died for his country. I’m glad I didn’t die, I’m glad I’m still around. There isn’t much I can really say about it.”
In the past, however, he has said he is tired of always hearing about Fox the icon.
Fonyo’s own success with his run is remarkable. For a brief spell afterward, he settled into life as a do-good celebrity.
In 1985, he became the youngest person named to the Order of Canada; he was the star attraction at the massive Canada Day party on Parliament Hill and named Newsmaker of the Year, beating out prime minister Brian Mulroney by a wide margin in the poll of news editors.
As the limelight dimmed and adrenalin ebbed, however, he had a difficult adjustment to life not on the run.
“The first couple of years I was a pilot, flying helicopters. After that I went back to university for a couple of years, working for a bank in Edmonton. And after that I came back from Edmonton to B.C.,” he says. He found on-and-off work as a mechanic.
“And then somewhere around there I did about 10 years of drugs.”
The headlines took on a dif- ferent flavour. “Warrant issued for Fonyo over speeding ticket” was among the first. Police in Medicine Hat, Alta., where he was pulled over, were flooded with calls from people offering to pay his $30 ticket.
At first, the nation’s gratitude and admiration continued. When his car was repossessed, car dealers pitched in to buy it back, fix it up and return it to Fonyo.
But the headlines got worse — much worse — and the public’s patience evaporated.
In 1987, it was a drunk driving charge. And then four more. In 1996 it was assault — he smashed his landlord over the head with a crescent wrench — fraud, perjury and possession of a stolen vehicle.
Court heard he was writing bogus cheques to supermarkets for cigarettes, which he traded for cocaine. He was charged with assaulting his girlfriend and says he pleaded guilty only because he couldn’t afford a lawyer.
In 2010, it was announced he had been stripped of his Order of Canada, a decision that still upsets him. He heard about the move from another inmate in jail when it was on the news.
Last summer, as filming of Hurt was underway, Fonyo was again charged with assault after an angry confrontation with his wife, whom he was leaving, sparked by him bringing his girlfriend to the couple’s home. He says he is innocent.
“I’ll fight it to the very last tooth and nail. There is no way I’m going to give in on this,” he says.
And then the stabbing happened, as the production was wrapping up. It remains unsolved.
How did Fonyo get to this point? Partly the fame, he says; he was too young. He hung around with the wrong people. He got addicted to excitement.
“I think the problem was I didn’t get the proper guidance, maybe. I’m not sure. But what happened, happened. The main thing is now I’m clean and I’m very happy, and I got to look forward to the future.” He has not yet seen the film. On Thursday, he boarded a bus from Vancouver to Toronto on another cross-Canada haul, to attend the TIFF premier. “I can hardly wait,” he says. And he is already anxious for a sequel, one he hopes will have a more uplifting ending.