The other day, I saw that Sean Connery had turned 90. Yes, the original James Bond is 90 years old. And instantly I was transported back about twenty years, to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) cafeteria, where Sean and I were chatting at the time. So, I began thinking: What else was I doing at that point in my life?
If Sean Connery is 90 now, then he was just a 70-year-old young’un when I met him. I remember that cafeteria well. That’s where I’d go before or after my broadcast. I was doing a daily noon-hour roundup of international news for CBC Newsworld International back then. That wasn’t the same as Canadian CBC Newsworld. No, it was a separate cable and satellite channel for the United States and South America. So, every day around lunch time, Toronto time, I’d beam myself via satellite into the homes of people in the U.S. and South America who wanted to find out what was going on in the world.
The cafeteria was also where all the stars who happened to be in Toronto—which meant doing an interview for the CBC was de rigueur—hung out. Being there myself every day, I got to meet quite a few of them: Sean Connery, Roger Moore (just a week or so later—two Bonds for the price of one), James Garner, Cynthia Dale, Peter Keleghan, most of the Hollywood and international stars that were in town for such events as the Toronto Film Festival, anyone who was shooting a film or TV show in Toronto, etc.
It was also there that I first met William Shatner, and it so happened that I needed to get to the airport right after work (I had some business in St. Louis, Missouri), so Bill, who was heading back to Los Angeles, graciously offered me a ride in his limo. DeForest Kelley, who had played Dr. McCoy on Star Trek, had passed away just weeks before, so we had quite a bit to talk about. I realized then that the media hadn’t done Bill justice at all, always portraying him as a kind of diva who didn’t like his co-stars, because he was visibly moved and shaken by De’s passing.
Those were the early days of the new 21st century, and CBC was facing some major budget cuts. So, after I had done this broadcast for about two seasons, that channel was sold to an American consortium led by Al Gore.
(Funny how life goes in circles, because just a few years prior to this, I had been the simultaneous interpreter for a speech given by Gore, and a few years later, I’d sit down with his former boss, Bill Clinton, over a nice luncheon and talk politics.)
The channel was then rebranded, and only available in the U.S. from that point forward. If I remember correctly, it specialized in soap opera repeats for a while. Several changes in ownership later, that channel is now Pop TV (again, not quite sure, but that’s the story as far as I know it).
Anyway, what else was I doing around that time? Apart from doing my freelance translation work, I was also a teacher of English, German and Spanish at a school in Toronto, and a proofreader at a printing company. Teaching was fun, but I also enjoyed my proofreading time, especially that one time when I pulled a 21-hour shift. In a way, I miss those days.
Oh yeah, and I was doing some voice-over work for TV and radio commercials, such as for Future Shop, and also did the occasional job over at MuchMusic (another cable-TV channel), with George Stroumboulopoulos, for example. Boy, I sure was busy back then.