One summer day in the late 1970s, my friend and agent Paul Grosney and I were walking along King Street past the King Edward Hotel where it was obvious that extensive renovation work was going on. Among other changes, the hotel was installing a spiffy new bar.
"Hey," Paul said, "maybe there's a gig for you in this place."
I needed a job like that because my long run at La Scala had recently ended.
"Come on," Paul said, "let's talk to the manager."
I was feeling sartorially snazzy that day, wearing an elegant summer suit in an oatmeal brown shade. It may have looked like a million bucks, but the suit actually cost twelve dollars when I bought it a few weeks earlier at a store in New Jersey during a time I was down there visiting my brother Victor. The twelve-dollar suit was such a bargain I bought two of them.
The suit turned out to be a lucky charm on that summer day with Paul Grosney because Paul had no sooner begun his pitch to the King Eddy's general manager when the general manager interrupted him. "You don't need to go any futher, Mr. Grosney," he said. "I already know all about Mr. DiNovi around this town." He proceeded to offer me a gig in the new bar as soon as it was completed.
I accepted.
"Do I really need to pay you ten percent for getting the gig?" I said to Paul after we left. "You didn't have to sell that general manager a thing."
"That's true," Paul said. "But I'm the guy who thought of going in and applying in the first place."
Paul had a point.
The King Edward job came with all kinds of advantages and pleasures. The room where I played had a little window in one wall, and in the winter, when snow began to fall, it brought a magical quality to the scene inside. Then there were the benefits to my own playing. When I started, I played only in the evening, but later I also played for a late afternoon period of about two and a half hours. With all the playing, my hands got much stronger, and I generated more power at the piano than I'd had in years.
The living arrangements at the King Eddie were another huge benefit. I moved into my own quarters in the hotel. People used to say to me, oh Gene, that's so terrible for you, living in a hotel month after month.
Yes, I always agreed, it's a burden.
In fact, it was fabulous. I got fresh sheets and towels every day. I installed a fender Rhodes piano so that I could practise and compose whenever I wanted. I ordered room service meals, which I got at half price. And the hotel took pride in hiring the most beautiful waitresses in town. All those gorgeous girls-and I was an unattached guy. What more could I ask?
Vladimir Horowitz stayed at the hotel for a month while he took care of some business he had in town. The greatest pianist in the world was in the building where I played every night. Would he come into the bar and listen to me? Would I play well? And what, as I began to think about it, did a guy play for an audience that included Vladimir Horowitz?
I performed for the usual number of celebrities and musicians who came through the King Edward, but not for anybody remotely like Horowitz. I fussed over the possibility of his appearance in the audience. My fussing level went up when the flutist who played in the lobby told me she had spoken to Horowitz and suggested to him that he should catch the pianist in the bar.
"I'm sure he'll want to hear you, Gene," the flutist told me.
One night, in the period when I was still waiting for Horowitz to show up, I finished a set, and hurried out to get myself a coffee during the short internission.
"Gene, where were you?" a waiter in the bar asked me when I came back with my coffee. "Horowitz poked his head in. But he didn't see anybody at the piano. So he left."
I was disappointed that I'd missed my opportunity. On the other hand, I still hadn't figured out the answer to the question, what should a pianist play for Vladimir Horowitz?
The way my daughter Denise told the story about how I met my second wife, Denise said to Deirdre Bowen, "You should date my dad. He's going out with a lot of bimbos."
The conversation took place in 1980 in Montreal. Denise was working for Film Plan, the Montreal movie company, and Deirdre was building her career as a casting agent for movies, television shows, commercials and just everything else where actors were needed.
Through Denise's machinations, Deirdre and I met in Toronto, and I was knocked out. Deirdre was beautiful, intelligent and exceptionally hard working. She was born in Kingston, Ontario, part Irish and the daughter of an Anglican minister and historian. For her university education, Deirdre went to Trinity College in Dublin. Then she found her way into casting where she made herself one of the top people in the business in Canada.
Gene and Deirdre circa 1986.
Deirdre and I got married on May 7, 1983, and a year later, she gave birth to our son William. We chose three godfathers for young William, all three likewise named William. One was the late great drummer and philosopher Billy Exiner; then Bill Scott, the Toronto financial advisor whom I had met by way of his wife Marilyn when she played piano in the Royal York Hotel lounge; and finally my song-writing friend Bill Comstock. The three godfathers represented different aspects in life-music, finances, words-and each of the three set standards by their example for their much younger namesake.
William was born during the time Deirdre and I had moved into a little house we bought on Brookside Drive in the west end. But by the time William started school, we were living at Arcadia, an artist co-op on Lakeshore Drive. Mostly people in the visual arts lived at the co-op, but there were a few other musicians besides me. Howard Cable, the excellent composer, arranger and conductor, was one of our fellow tenants. The benefit Deirdre and I most appreciated at Arcadia was that William went to school across the bay on Toronto Island. As a school, it took a more independent approach than the usual Toronto schools, and the teachers there saw potential in William that might otherwise have been overlooked. He was steered into a gifted program and benefitted greatly from the education he got.
Later, we moved further north in the city to a townhouse on Merton Street near Yonge and St. Clair, the place where Dierdre and I still live and work to this day. William went to high schools in the area, then went off to Wesleyan University, a long established liberal arts school in Middletown, Connecticut, to get himself prepared for whatever career he chose.
Through much of this period, I continued to play piano in high-class hotel lounges, After the King Edward, I moved to the Four Seasons on Yorkville Avenue not far from my favourite Lothian Mews hangout. The thing that most stuck in my mind about the Four Seasons experience came from the people I met. The hotel was the place where the most of the actors and writers and artists stayed while they were in Toronto on creative business.
Wilford Brimley, the actor, was one. Wilford was a character actor and made a ton of interesting Hollywood movies, films like China Syndrome, The Firm and Absence of Malice. He liked my music, and asked me one night if I would play It's You or No One. I obliged, and from there, we struck up a friendship. I introduced him to Deirdre. I even introduced him to little William for whom Wilford bought generous gifts.
On the face of it, he was a guy I wouldn't expect to get along with. He'd served in the Marines and held all kinds of right wing views. I didn't agree with that side of him, but Wilford was a guy with diabetes and did a lot of work on behalf of cures and treatment for the disease. He had compassion. And he knew something about music-he sang not badly himself-and I liked that aspect of his personality. Erratic and eccentric as he was, he was never dull company.
One night at the Four Seasons, I noticed a man in my line of vision who I recognized as one of my favourite painters. He was Alex Colville, the great realist artist from the Maritimes. At the next break, I introduced myself, and we fell into a comfortable conversation. He mentioned that his favourite song was Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. I played it for him on the next set, and later we chatted again. And later still, we had a short correspondence.
It was a pleasant experience for me, but the Four Seasons manager wasn't so keen on the way I'd spent my intermissions.
"I'm told you wasted time talking to someone named Colville," he said after he summoned me to his office.
The first thing I thought was that the manager must have a hell of a spy network on his staff, reporting my every move. The second was that he hadn't a clue who Alex Colville was.
"Well," I said, "Mr. Colville happens to be one of Canada's greatest painters."
"Really?" the manager said. Now he was suddenly interested in the man I'd spoken to.
"Probably one of the greatest painters in the world," I said.
"In the world?" the manager said. "How do I get to meet him?"
"He's gone home to the Maritimes," I said. "I'll let you know when he's back in town."
I never again had a problem with the manager about my conversations with the customers between sets. Lounge managers, I discovered over the years, aren't necessarily the most informed or culturally hip guys in the world, no matter how classy their nightclubs and lounges may be.