Show portrays U.S. history, made in Canada
Scouts scoured GTA for places to plunge back in time for ‘Mrs. America’
The show is called “Mrs. America,” but that’s Canada — and specifically Toronto and other parts of the GTA — that you’re seeing onscreen.
The FX limited series is about the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s, and how a group of conservative women managed to scuttle the ratification of the amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would have guaranteed equal rights regardless of sex. The show takes a nuanced look at women on both sides of the fight with a powerhouse cast led by Oscar winner Cate Blanchett as conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly and Emmy nominee Rose Byrne as feminist icon Gloria Steinem.
The Greater Toronto Area played host between June and October last year to Blanchett, Byrne and the rest of the cast and crew. That meant location managers Scott Alexander and Anne Richardson and their teams were tasked with finding local stand-ins for such American cities as New York, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and Miami.
They’re old hands at this — Richardson, for instance, was still here working on the U.S.set “The Handmaid’s Tale” when preparations started for “Mrs. America.”
The real challenge in this case was not to make Canada look like the U.S., but making it look like the past. “Being set in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, it’s hard to find those locations in 2019,” Alexander said. “You have to really scour.”
Finding period-appropriate hotels and houses was particularly taxing, he said. But he hit the jackpot when hunting for a stand-in for the Schlafly house in Alton, Ill. — a location the series had to return to over and over again. Lislehurst, the principal’s residence on the University of Toronto’s Mississauga campus, became the home of Schlafly, her husband, Fred, and their six children.
The stately home was built in 1885 and renovated in 1928 and, conveniently, the school’s principal wasn’t living there when Alexander went looking.
“The amount of period-ness that is in that house is fascinating,” Alexander said, noting that the production used about 80 per cent of the home. The kitchen had been modernized so a period-appropriate one had to be built on an Etobicoke sound stage along with a larger dining room, and a house on the Kingsway supplied the Schlaflys’ backyard since Lislehurst lacked a pool.
Another location seen frequently in “Mrs. America” are the New York City offices of Ms. Magazine (coincidentally, the magazine currently features a report on the Equal Rights Amendment on its website). The former Lever Brothers soap factory at the foot of the Don Valley Parkway stood in for that, Richardson said.
Some other local spots that were ready for their close-ups?
The International Centre near Pearson airport became the site of the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, where Shirley Chisholm (played by Uzo Aduba), the first Black woman elected to U.S. Congress, fought to become the Democrats’ presidential nominee.
Downtown Toronto’s Victoria Street and Sultan Street became streets in New York City; University Avenue doubled as a street in Washington, where Steinem and member of Congress Bella Abzug (Margo Martindale) took a stroll.
Various locations at the University of Toronto were used, including buildings at Victoria College and St. Michael’s College, and a house just off University Avenue that became the law office of Fred Schlafly (John Slattery of “Mad Men”). “The interior was amazing, the perfect period,” Alexander said of the latter.
His favourite location, after the Lislehurst home, was a beauty salon in the Junction. It became the place where Schlafly and her fellow housewives got their hair done. In real life, it’s Eva’s Hairstylists on Dundas Street West and it’s owned by a woman in her 90s who still cuts hair there one day a week, according to Alexander.
“It’s like a time capsule. There were packages of hair combs from the 1960s, still in the original packaging. It was a great find.”
Alexander and Richardson both have decades of experience as location managers after getting into the business through family members: the former when he helped out his sister, who was working in a production office, Richardson when she assisted her father — an executive producer on “The Littlest Hobo.”
Their jobs involve being well versed in styles of architecture, but also many details the rest of us wouldn’t notice. For instance, Alexander said finding interiors for Washington political buildings was challenging because their marble comes from different quarries than Canadian stone.
“You try to match as best as you can.”
Details also count for the set decoration teams that come in once the locations have been secured. Everything down to the wall sockets has to be changed for period shows, and an alarm system had to be removed from the Lislehurst/ Schlafly home — and then everything has to be put back exactly as it was when the shoot is done.
“It’s a big process, but it’s worth it in the end,” said Alexander, who began work on “Mrs. America” six months before shooting started. “Audiences can tell when you’re not in the real world. It’s quite important to be out there shooting actual places.”
“It’s such a collaboration of so many departments to bring it all together in the end,” Richardson said — everything from lighting, cinematography and direction to hair, makeup and costumes.
“It’s such a great story to tell, you want to do it justice,” she added of “Mrs. America.”
“I was proud to work on it.”
“Mrs. America” airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on FX Canada, which is now in free preview, and is available on demand and on the FX app.