Mordecai Richler was a Canadian writer. His best known works are The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959) and Barney's Version (1997). His 1970 novel St. Urbain's Horseman and 1989 novel Solomon Gursky Was Here were nominated for the Booker Prize. He is also well known for the Jacob Two-Two fantasy series for children. In addition to his fiction, Richler wrote numerous essays about the Jewish community in Canada, and about Canadian and Quebec nationalism. Richler's Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! (1992), a collection of essays about nationalism and anti-Semitism, generated considerable controversy.
John Franklin Candy was a Canadian actor and comedian who is best known for his work in Hollywood films. Candy first rose to national prominence in the 1970s as a member of the Toronto branch of the Second City and its SCTV sketch comedy series. He rose to international fame in the 1980s with his roles in comedic films such as Stripes, Splash, Brewster's Millions, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Spaceballs, The Great Outdoors, Uncle Buck, and Cool Runnings. He also appeared in supporting roles in The Blues Brothers, National Lampoon's Vacation, Little Shop of Horrors, and Home Alone, and featured in dramatic roles in Only the Lonely and JFK.
Irving Peter Layton, OC was a Romanian-born Canadian poet. He was known for his "tell it like it is" style which won him a wide following but also made him enemies. As T. Jacobs notes in his biography (2001), Layton fought Puritanism throughout his life:
Layton's work had provided the bolt of lightning that was needed to split open the thin skin of conservatism and complacency in the poetry scene of the preceding century, allowing modern poetry to expose previously unseen richness and depth.
Peter John Gzowski, known colloquially as "Mr. Canada", or "Captain Canada", was a Canadian broadcaster, writer and reporter, most famous for his work on the CBC radio shows This Country in the Morning and Morningside. His first biographer argued that Gzowski's contribution to Canadian media must be considered in the context of efforts by a generation of Canadian nationalists to understand and express Canada's cultural identity. Gzowski wrote books, hosted television shows, and worked at a number of newspapers and at Maclean's magazine. Gzowski was known for a friendly, warm, interviewing style.
John Gordon "Jack" McClelland CC was a Canadian publisher. He was known for promoting Canadian writers as president of the McClelland and Stewart publishing house.
McClelland & Stewart Limited is a Canadian publishing company. It is owned by Penguin Random House of Canada, a branch of Penguin Random House, the international book publishing division of German media giant Bertelsmann.
William Theodore Kotcheff is a Canadian director and producer of film and television. He is known for directing such films as the seminal Australian New Wave picture Wake in Fright (1971), the Mordechai Richler adaptations The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974) and Joshua Then and Now (1985), the original Rambo film First Blood (1982), and the comedies Fun with Dick and Jane (1977), North Dallas Forty (1979), and Weekend at Bernie's (1989).
The New Canadian Library is a publishing imprint of the Canadian company McClelland and Stewart. The series aims to present classic works of Canadian literature in paperback. Each work published in the series includes a short essay by another notable Canadian writer, discussing the historical context and significance of the work. These essays were originally forewords, but after McClelland and Stewart's 1985 sale to Avie Bennett, the prefatory material was abandoned and replaced by afterwords.
Atuk is the name of an unfilmed American screenplay, intended to be a film adaptation based upon the 1963 novel The Incomparable Atuk, by Canadian author Mordecai Richler. It is essentially a fish out of water comedy of a proud, mighty Inuit hunter trying to adapt to life in the big city with satirical elements on racism, materialism, and popular culture.
Charles William Foran is a Canadian writer in Toronto, Ontario.
The Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award is a literary award that annually recognizes one Canadian children's book. The book must be written in English and published in Canada during the preceding year. The writer must be a citizen or permanent resident of Canada.
Joshua Then and Now is a Canadian novel written by Mordecai Richler, published in 1980 by McClelland and Stewart. A semi-autobiographical novel, the book is based his life on his neighborhood growing up in Montreal, Quebec, and tells of the life of a writer. Richler later adapted the novel into the feature film Joshua Then and Now, starring James Woods, Alan Arkin, and Gabrielle Lazure; directed by Ted Kotcheff who had previously directed Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.
Cocksure is a novel by Mordecai Richler. It was first published in 1968 by McClelland and Stewart.
Stanley Mann was a Canadian screenwriter. Born in Toronto, Ontario, he began his writing career in 1951 at CBC Radio, and was nominated for an Oscar for his work on the 1965 film The Collector, based on the John Fowles novel of the same title. He worked in many different genres, but his best known credits included the horror sequel Damien - Omen II, the literary adaptations A High Wind in Jamaica, Eye of the Needle and Firestarter, and the sword-and-sorcery film Conan the Destroyer.
The Street is a collection of short stories by Mordecai Richler. It was originally published by McClelland and Stewart in 1969. The stories take place on Saint Urbain Street in Montreal.
Tundra Books is the oldest children's book publisher in Canada.
Alan Dennis Metter was an American film director whose most notable credits include Back to School starring Rodney Dangerfield, and Girls Just Want to Have Fun with Sarah Jessica Parker. He also produced and directed the 1983 television special The Winds of Whoopee for Steve Martin. In 1988, he was set to direct Atuk, based on the Mordecai Richler novel The Incomparable Atuk, with Sam Kinison as the title character. The production was shut down early into filming.
St. Urbain's Horseman is the seventh novel by Canadian author Mordecai Richler. First published in 1971 by McClelland & Stewart, it won the Governor General's Award for 1971.
Bear is a novel by Canadian author Marian Engel, published in 1976. It won the Governor General's Literary Award the same year. It is Engel's fifth novel, and her most famous. The story tells of a lonely archivist sent to work in northern Ontario, where she enters into a sexual relationship with a bear. The Canadian Encyclopedia calls the book "the most controversial novel ever written in Canada".
Michael Posner is a Canadian journalist, best known as the author of the Mordecai Richler biography The Last Honest Man, the Anne Murray biography All of Me, and The Art of Medicine: Healing and the Limits of Technology with the physician Dr. Herbert Ho Ping Kong. He is also the author of a three-volume oral biography of Leonard Cohen published by Simon and Schuster. The first volume Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories: The Early Years was published in 2020. The second volume Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories: This Broken Hill was published in 2021, and the final volume, Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories: That's How the Light Gets In, will be published late 2022.
