A DARING LENSMAN
GRAHAM BEZANT May 30, 1944 — May 7, 2021 Former Toronto Star photographer Graham Bezant lived a daredevil’s life until the end, touching the hearts of readers through his camera
‘‘ He mentored young photographers, willing to share his expertise and experience. But most will remember his devilish grin and cackling laugh, which he offered in equal measure. JIM WILKES
During the construction of the CN Tower, Graham Bezant was in the air, capturing the occasion through his lens.
At the 1972 Munich Games tainted by the Black September hostage crisis, Bezant was there to frame the incident in time for viewers to recount decades later.
As a part of the Toronto Star’s photography team, Bezant produced incredible work at the marvel of both readers and his fellow colleagues.
He lived a daredevil’s life until the end.
On April 20, Bezant was gliding down Australia’s Brisbane Valley Rail Trail on an electric bike with 10 friends.
A bad turn led to a fall and he ended up with a concussion, despite wearing a helmet.
Bezant was sent to hospital. He was there for 17 days and died on May 7, almost three weeks before his 77th birthday on May 30.
“He died a happy man doing what he loved,” said Dianne, his wife of more than 50 years.
Dianne was by his bedside in his last hours.
Bezant was known to go back and forth between Canada and Australia, his home country.
He landed in Vancouver in 1965, working for a magazine for about a year.
The next year, Bezant and Dianne drove to Toronto where he pursued a career as a freelance photographer.
Bezant freelanced for the Star before officially joining the team in the coming years.
After a trip back to Australia, he returned to Toronto in 1989 where he spent a short time at the Toronto Sun as a photo editor. He then moved to the same role at the Star.
The couple soon moved back to Australia for good.
Jim Wilkes, who started at the Star in 1975 as a photographer and reporter, said he got closer with the late journalist after Bezant went back to Australia.
The two kept up constant contact despite the distance, staying at each other’s homes on visits between the two countries.
“He mentored young photographers, willing to share his expertise and experience. But most will remember his devilish grin and cackling laugh, which he offered in equal measure,” said Wilkes.
Bezant made the risky decision to hang in a bucket more than a thousand feet in the air to capture construction workers working on the CN Tower in the early ’70s.
Bezant and famous Star photographer Boris Spremo were in a competition to see who could get the most outrageous picture.
“If you’re in the tower, you can’t really see anything because you’re standing on what you’re supposed to be photographing,” said former Star photographer Ron Bull, who met Bezant in Australia before the two joined the Star’s photo crew.
“Graham talked the construction guys into letting him go into one of the cement bucket sand then they let the crane lift him out, say 20 feet out .”
The year before, Bezant flew over the slipform construction of the tower in an experimental aircraft called the Breezy, getting a fish-eye view of the tower, himself and the pilot into one frame.
Readers were able to peer into Bezant’s mind in a 2012 story in the Star where former staff looked back on their experiences with the paper.
“Always wanting to capture an image that stimulated or invigorated the reader, I looked for an unusual angle or a better way to chronicle a story,” Bezant wrote.
During the Munich 1972 Olympic Games in Germany, nine Israeli athletes were held hostage by members of Black September, a Palestinian terrorist organization.
Eleven Israeli athletes were murdered.
Bull said Bezant stretched his minor credentials to get closer to where the hostages were being held.
Bezant touched the minds of readers through his camera work and the hearts of those he worked with through his ability to evoke laughter and smiles in his wake.
Dick Loek, who was friends with Bezant since they met in the Star newsroom in the ’70s, recalled the Toronto International Festival Caravan event.
Different pavilions across the city would be set up to showcase the city’s cultures and journalists rode around on a press bus visiting each set.
Makeshift bullfighting was featured at the Spanish pavilion, where a ring would be set up with a matador and someone dressed as a bull.
“I remember we drank quite a bit in those days. He ended up in the Spanish Pavilion in the middle of the floor. He was doing the bullfight,” said Loek.
“There’s now a cloud over our village,” said Dianne. “Everywhere he went, he made people happy.”