Bold, bullying — but ever the Boss
Beland Honderich scared the bejesus out of me.
That’s not a bad thing. A newspaper publisher should be feared more than loved, although I have much affection for his son John who, in time, succeeded Honderich as capo and then, too soon, succeeded him in resigning from that executive suite in The Tower.
I don’t understand newspaper politics at that level of administration. Difficult enough to grasp the internecine power battles down here at the infantry level of the newsroom, where the grunts are deployed. There was a time when I would happily spend long, boozy nights dissecting this stuff with colleagues. Now I no longer care. Best to keep an emotional arm’s- length distance from such intrigues and just do the job, write the stories. That’s what matters, at least for those of us who recoil from management ambitions. Honderich passed away on Tuesday, at age 86, following a stroke. My deepest condolences go out to his family. But my condolences also encompass the Star because of an era that is now really and truly gone.
I’m getting old. I know too many dead people. Not that it could be said that I ever knew Honderich. It appears few people did, including those who worked most closely with him through the five decades in which he influenced, shaped and ultimately commanded this paper. Unlike most media moguls, Honderich eschewed the elite social circles to which his position allowed entree. He was not a boldface kind of guy. But bold and bullying, yes. Assured in his vision of the Star’s place in the Canadian landscape, its duty, absolutely.
Liberal and progressive and provocative, if sometimes wincingly preachy. Honderich was an austere man. When he appeared for daily newsroom strolls — his shirts always looking too white, the sleeves never rolled up — reporters would reach for the phone, start dialing. Mostly, we hoped to look busy and industrious. But also, there was the dread — absurd, because he just didn’t do this — that Honderich might stop by someone’s desk and initiate a conversation.
Tongue-tied would describe how we felt in close proximity to the man, perhaps when trapped alone with him in a slowly ascending elevator. He might nod, he might say hello, he might even ask “ How are you?” But those doors could never open quickly enough. He simply oozed formidability.
And, as legend instructs us, Honderich could be withering with senior editors, driving more than a few to the drink. Not for nothing was he known as “ The Beast.” As a 17- year-old scrubeenie, toiling in the Star sports department, I did have opportunity to observe a different Beland — amiable, chatty, guffawing. On most mornings, Honderich would stop by the far corner desk to shoot the breeze with Milt Dunnell, the Star’s illustrious sports columnist. It was Milt who did the matchmaking that brought Honderich to the Star in 1943, from the KitchenerWaterloo Record, and there were those who never forgave him. It would be Honderich who repeatedly discouraged Milt from retiring, even as the latter moved into his 80s, and for this all fans of clever, breezy sports writing are thankful. After mandatory retirement age — I’m told — one icon put the other icon on a personal services contract. Honderich may have been president of the first Canadian local of the American Newspaper Guild, but he recognized that some cases are exceptional.
In any event, I doubt whether Honderich had any clue who I was, not then and not 20 years later. Why would he? But there was one occasion, when I was working as a feature writer for the Sunday paper, that I received a nice little complimentary memo for a profile I’d done about a female orchestra conductor. At the bottom was Honderich’s distinctive, heavy signature. Hooboy, did I flash that thing around the newsroom.
Years later, after the sudden death of Star columnist Gary Lautens, I was tagged to phone Honderich at home — his number had always been listed in the phone book — and interview him for the obituary. Palms slick with sweat, I stumbled through the ordeal, terrified of a) sounding stupid and gauche; and b) making even the tiniest error with his quotes. Honderich was a stickler for accuracy — he was the first to introduce a bureau of accuracy for newspapers.
I have another memory of Honderich, this from the bitter Star strike of 1992. We, the striking employees, were massing in the back of the building, trying to prevent delivery trucks from leaving. Things got out of hand, as they inevitably do in these situations. Confrontations erupted and an aura of menace descended. I happened to look up and there was Honderich, framed in the window a few stories above, an expression of such dismay on his face. I recall suddenly thinking: “ This is wrong.”
It’s been said that Honderich was a humourless and severe man, dictatorial. I don’t dispute this. He did, with aforethought, wring the razzle- dazzle out of the Star when he took charge because he wanted a more sober, informative, if not necessarily entertaining, paper, one that could boast gravitas on matters of national importance. But I often wondered at how his alleged diktats may have occasionally been misinterpreted by sycophants desperate to please. Even an off-the-cuff observation could take on the weight of fiat by the time it reached the newsroom. There was the time he expressed approval of the anecdotal lede — a lede is the first sentence or paragraph of a story. Thus, for months afterwards, just about every story was sent back to the writer with orders to change the top into an anecdotal lede. It got soooo silly. However dour and frightening he may have been, there must also have been another side, a tender side, revealed to only a few. I remember John describing to me Honderich’s New Year’s Day marriage in 2000, in Hawaii. John was the best man and it all sounded so lovely, so romantic. It was poignant that a man in his ninth decade should have found love again.
His was a full, rich and honourable life. I’m grateful to have worked at his Star. Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.