Toronto has a starrier history than we think
A real-life prince in our midst.
When the revelation was made this month that the ginger-regal Harry had been in town to visit his sweetheart, Suits starlet Meghan Markle, the romance set off a cascade of speculation and was later doubledowned by a terse statement from the palace itself.
And while the liaison continues to cause ripple effects on this side of the pond — Markle had two bodyguards with her, I hear, in the waning days of the Suits shoot last week and has indicated she’ll continue to live here in the west end — what’s triply interesting is the extent to which some Toronto folk just couldn’t believe that we were a stage for such a saga.
How quickly we forget. Too often partial to a certain homebred amnesia, we forget how much starry history has actually unfolded in this town over the years. I thought I’d do quick and dirty rundown. Two caveats: none of these events happened during the Toronto International Film Festival (when A-listers inevitably abound) and none of them involve Drake (who’s been known to engineer selfies with Rihanna with the CN Tower in the background).
A backwater? Hardly. Trudeaus and Stones Long before the Twitterverse, way before we called this town The 6, there was the case of a Canadian “First Lady” partying with the most notorious of rock bands. Having decided to separate from Pierre on March 4, 1977 — their sixth anniversary, as it happened — the public learned about the split when Maggie Trudeau, the wife of a PM and mom of a future one, dropped into Toronto’s famed El Mocambo on Spadina to see the Rolling Stones. She was spotted in the dressing room with Mick Jagger and was also found staying in the same hotel where the gang was booked. The scandal, which had an airing in People and beyond, had Mrs. Trudeau defending her actions, the fledging photographer insisting that her interest in Jagger was purely “photographic.” Back on Parliament Hill, Pierre was insouciant at a press conference (during which half the questions were about you know who), telling reporters his flower-child bride was “cancelling a few of her official en- gagements. She wants to be a private person for a while.” Asked to comment on her feelings about the Stones, Pierre commented, “I don’t think the Rolling Stones are as great favourites with her as the Beatles,” adding, with a quip, “I hope that she doesn’t start to see the Beatles.” Liz and Dick on King Brangelina who? There was no stormier celebrity duo than Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, whose adulterous alliance began on the set of the ill-fated Cleopatra in 1962. Such an all-caps deal was their affair that it’s widely considered to be the modern Pandora’s Box of paparazzi and was even condemned by the Vatican. Only two years later, their melodrama shifted to Toronto, where Burton was to headline a production of Hamlet at the O’Keefe (today, the Sony Centre) and where the world’s two biggest movie stars set up a love nest at the King Ed- ward. “Ghastly crowds of morons besiege the hotel where Burton and Taylor are saying,” the play’s director, John Gielgud, jotted in his diaries. “Every drink and conversation they have is paragraphs and reported.” Basically a prisoner in her suite, Taylor took to walking her two poodles on the roof and appeared sparingly, like a 32nd birthday fete for her held backstage at the O’Keefe. Burton gave her a $150,000 Bulgari necklace. She, in turn, gave him the news that a Mexican divorce had come through from her fourth husband, Eddie Fisher. Presto: they fled to Montreal to be married, returning to T.O. two nights later for a performance, where after the curtain call Liz tah-dah’ed to join her groom. “I say, we shall have no more marriages,” he bellowed to the audience, quoting a line from Hamlet. The crowd erupted. (Footnote: there would be three more marriages for each . . . including another one to each other.) True Tori On a June night in 2006, Tori Spelling sat at Betty’s, an old haunt on the east side, when she received the bombshell on her BlackBerry that her father, Aaron — the most prolific producer in American TV history — had died. Problem is, it was a friend who had emailed. Her sorrow turning to anger, Tori later confessed, “My first thought: I can’t believe my mom (Candy) didn’t call me.” Cue one of the biggest mom-daughter feuds in Hollyweird, with way too much money to stake and Toronto playing a pivotal role. Having coupled up with local actor Dean McDermott — both shedding their spouses on the way — they’d go on to have four children and umpteen reality shows. Along the way, the city would again (and again) play a stage for the daughter of the man who produced Dynasty, Beverly Hills 90210 and Love Boat. In 2013, Dean was caught cheating on Tori here, with the “other woman” squealing to US Weekly about their meet at Pravda on Wellington and their in flagrante delicto at the Royal York. Somehow, Tori and Dean have managed to stick it out and there’s even a fifth baby en route. Back to the Cold War Decades before he’d go on to break Carrie Bradshaw’s heart on Sex and the City, Mikhail Baryshnikov was at the heart of a plot here right out of a John le Carré novel. Here to perform with the Bolshoi Ballet in 1974 — back when Baryshnikov was already being hailed as one of the 20th century’s great dancers — the stud “defected” from the Soviet Union. Setting off geopolitical alarm bells, the incident (also at the O’Keefe) unfolded when a group of dancers stood on Front St., waiting for a KGB-escorted ride to the afterparty. Ducking them, Baryshnikov declined, saying he wanted to stay to give some autographs. Instead, disappearing into the crowd, he sprinted three blocks to a restaurant where Canadian diplomats shuffled him into a waiting car to spirit him into political asylum.