Max Ferguson Dead at 89

[jon]

Max Ferguson was my favourite CBC personality. I listened to his daily show, with Allan McFee, on my way to school until I graduated from high school.

Although I missed it entirely, his earlier CBC Radio show, Rawhide, may well have been the first CBC program to capture anything resembling ratings for CBC Radio after television was in full swing.

CBC Radio's Max Ferguson dies
CBC News
Posted: Mar 7, 2013 5:03 PM ET
Last Updated: Mar 7, 2013 7:48 PM ET

CBC Radio personality Max Ferguson, best known for his long-running programs Rawhide and The Max Ferguson Show, has died. He was 89.

In more than 50 years at the CBC, Ferguson became a celebrated satirist and award-winning broadcaster and writer.

Born in Durham, England, Ferguson arrived in Canada at the tender age of three and grew up in London, Ont., where he graduated with a BA in English and French from the University of Western Ontario.

He soon embarked on a broadcasting career, joining CFPL London as an announcer. Only a few months later, he was in Halifax, employed by the CBC.

However, when he went to work one Saturday, he was horrified to learn he had been scheduled to host a half-hour show on country music, which Ferguson loathed. That’s when he decided to invent a character called Rawhide.

"I then proceeded for the next half-hour to introduce each cowboy record in the most insulting fashion I could devise," he wrote in his 1967 memoir, And Now…Here's Max, which nabbed the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.

It was an instant hit and much to Ferguson’s chagrin, he was soon hosting a a six-mornings-a-week show, which ran for 17 years out of Halifax and Toronto, starring Rawhide and as many as 14 other characters that Ferguson could create.

After retiring Rawhide in 1962, he soon launched The Max Ferguson Show, which ran five days a week and featured topical skits based on the news of the day.

Ferguson would mimic prominent politicians and celebrities, and he wrote his own sketches.

Ferguson was a busy broadcaster. He also appeared on the satirical comedy show Inside From The Outside, the afternoon TV talk show 55 North Maple and the TV news program Tabloid.

After 52 years at the CBC, he retired in 1998.

Ferguson was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1970 and garnered many other accolades, including the Governor General's Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement in 2001, the John Drainie Award for significant contribution to Canadian broadcasting, the Gordon Sinclair Award, three ACTRA trophies, and honorary degrees from the University of Western Ontario, the University of Waterloo and Dalhousie University.

[jon]

In honour of Rawhide
By Grahame Woods, Northumberland Today
Friday, March 8, 2013 9:15:01 EST AM

Grahame Woods wrote this column for Northumberland Today in January 2012. In view of Max Ferguson's death on March 7, we feel it is fitting to re-run his opinion piece:

Over the years whilst driving, I’ve see him walking the streets of Cobourg, his dog at his side. He doesn’t know it, but I have a special affinity for him. About three years or so ago, I found myself behind him as we both left Cobourg’s crowded No Frills store and I couldn’t resist calling out, "Good morning, Rawhide." He turned, a big smile breaking. "Well, I haven’t been called that in a long time." Rawhide and I go back a long way, well over 50 years in fact.

In 1956 I had been in Canada for just over a year, Although my ambition was to become a newspaper photographer, I couldn’t get a job – and needed one badly. Learning of an opening for an industrial radiographer to X-ray welding on pipelines, oil storage tanks and castings, using radio-active isotopes, I was finally employed. Photographer? Radiographer? Simply change a few letters. Which found this skinny neophyte roughing it in pipeline-trenches around Ontario in what I now look back on as my true pioneering days – paying my dues. Then I was sent for eight weeks to Corner Brook, on Newfoundland’s west coast, to X-ray welding at a nearby, new tank farm under construction.

I arrived at Corner Brook’s Glynmill Inn for an eternity of endless days made tolerable by my discovery of CBC radio (Canada’s one true link) and a new routine. A clock-radio wakened me each morning to the national news, followed by the Rawhide Show (at least, that was what I called it), originating from CBC Halifax. It was magical – a mix of music, skits, satire and a cast of ‘characters’ dealing with current affairs, created and performed by the brilliant Max Ferguson who went on to become a Canadian broadcasting legend. For an unhappy camper, knowing no one, aside from the people I encountered in my work, who went off to their own lives at the end of the day, it was a lonely, endless time. But each morning I got my daily fix of Rawhide, a booster-shot to start the day, and he carried me through until I finally climbed on board a Trans Canada Airlines DC6 for the long journey home.

If this column was a film, we would now dissolve to circa 1959. I have a job working for, yes, the CBC, as an assistant to their staff of cinematographers. A foot-in-the- door. And I’m assigned to work on a documentary film about the Canadian navy, which found me in Halifax on the deck of the aircraft carrier HMCS Bonaventure. I was low man on the totem-pole of the film crew, preparing for an interview with the carrier’s captain – who arrived in front of the camera with the interviewer for the film – Max Ferguson, Rawhide.

It was a surreal experience. I’d had this remarkable relationship with a voice coming over the airwaves, which gave meaning to the expression ‘you made my day’ – and here he was, in the flesh, so close, and an opportunity to say ‘thank you’ just steps away. But the unwritten protocol of film crews, together with my own reserve, found my feet frozen to the ground. The interview over, Max quickly left and my opportunity was gone. Some years later, Max moved to CBC Toronto and The Max Ferguson Show, a variation on the theme of the show that raised my spirits during my pioneering days and one I tried to catch whenever I could.

Dissolving again – back to the Cobourg No Frills store – moving along in the bustle of cart-pushing shoppers, I had that chance to call out to Max Ferguson and quickly mention I’d heard his show so many years ago ... but didn’t get to shake his hand and say ‘Thank you.’ So, here’s my opportunity; If you happen to read this, ‘Thank you, Max – Rawhide. You didn’t know it, but you were one of the building-blocks in my journey to becoming a Canadian, not to mention the huge boost to my morale during those long weeks in Corner Brook.'

Finally ... I got to say it.

[hagopian]

Mr. Ferguson lived two blocks from me in Halifax, in 1954. His son and I went to Primary school together. I would be invited in for cookies and Max would start giving me the gears. He treated me with respect and humour and over the years I have never forgotten his kindness.

I was walking down Spring Garden Road one afternoon in 1987 - and who should be walking towards me? Rawhide.
I stopped him, politely. "Mr. Ferguson?", I asked - "yes, how can I help you?". I told him of our meetings all those years ago and he lit up like a Christmas tree. "You mean you are on CJ now - man, that's great".

He was a legend, a great talent, but a finer man.

I loved him, and I have missed he and Alan McPhee and Rawhide for many years.

It isn't the same listening to Sonic and some woman from Compton moaning over a distorted guitar.

[radiofan]

This morning Rick Cluff kicked off the Morning Edition on CBU with the old Max Ferguson theme. He and newsman Brian Dance shared some memories of Max Ferguson.

Rick mentioned that one of his best friends in school was a kid named Scott Ferguson. Rick had been a big Rawhide fan and it wasn't until grade 11 that he realized his
best friend's dad was actually Max Ferguson. Years later, when Rick started working at CBC, he was being ntroduced to the newsroom staff. Max is there, turns around
and says "Hi Rick" ... Rick responds, "Hi Mr. Fwerguson". He He said there was no way he could call him Max .. he weas still Mr Ferguson.

Rick and Scott are still friends today.

[Eldon-Mr.CFAY]

Greetings,
Well here we go again losing another great Canadian and very talented broadcaster! I too listened to Max Ferguson on CBC and he was a real talented and creative radio broadcaster. Put real personality into his radio broadcasting and I am certain made real impact for CBC Radio across Canada! His creative radio characters were just great! Its nice to remember great radio broadcasters like this and am sorry to see them leave us!

Well take care everyone, all the best! Eldon

[jon]

An audio tribute to Max Ferguson that aired on CBC Radio to celebrate his 50th anniversary with the CBC in 1996, has debuted this morning on reelradio.com.

A fairly lengthy Description and some pictures accompany it.

[jon]

Veteran CBC radio host Max Ferguson recalled as brilliant, funny
March 8, 2013 - 9:47am
By LOIS LEGGE Features Writer
Arts & Life
The Chronicle-Herald, Halifax

He could spoof the news and interview newsmakers.

Mock a politician and stand next to one at a posh garden party, albeit wearing a Hawaiian shirt, jeans and sneakers.

But that, a friend and former colleague says, was the late Max Ferguson, the Canadian radio and television pioneer who died this week at the age of 89.

Brilliant. Rebellious. Funny. A “unique” talent with so many of them.

This is how retired CBC broadcaster Don Tremaine remembered him Friday, describing Ferguson’s more than 50 years at CBC — early on in Halifax and later in Toronto — as times of iconic creativity.

Best known for such satirical radio shows as Rawhide and The Max Ferguson Show, the entertainer and master mimic conducted news interviews, too.

That’s what he did when Tremaine first met Ferguson — Dec. 20, 1954 — the night television was born in Halifax.

“I read the news and then Pat Connolly did the sports and then Rube Hornstein and Max were on from there,” says the Dartmouth resident, who spent 36 years with CBC in Nova Scotia, first in Sydney and then in Halifax.

“Rube did the weather, Max interviewed somebody and we were through for the night.”

In 1956, Ferguson joined Tremaine and Hornstein on Gazette, a CBC Halifax news program.

“We were the three stooges,” jokes Tremaine “And we had a lot of fun.”

Seems a lot of folks had a lot of fun with, or listening to, Ferguson over the years.

Even some of the politicians he so frequently mocked.

Tremaine still laughs about Ferguson’s encounter with one of them at a governor general’s annual garden party in the early 1970s, sometime after the entertainer had received the Order of Canada.

As the story goes, the famed broadcaster received an invitation to the event but says, “I ain’t going to that thing, forget it,” recalls his 85-year-old former colleague, who like Ferguson and others, doubled in both radio and television back in the day.

His bosses insisted.

“But being the rebel that he was, he didn’t get dressed up for the affair. He went in a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt and a pair of jeans and pair of running shoes.

“He says he grabbed a drink on a tray going by and a sandwich, about the size of a 50 cent piece, and he says, ‘I’m trying to wash it down and I hear this voice in my ear’ — which he could imitate to perfection — and the voice says, ‘Anybody who would turn up at the governer general’s garden party dressed like a tramp has got to be absolutely without any class at all.’

“He turned around and it was Pierre Trudeau, who was also in a short-sleeved shirt and sandals. So he says, ‘I found a brother.’”

Tremaine says Ferguson did an immaculate imitation of Trudeau. John Diefenbaker, too.

Plus, the entertainer he compares to Johnny Carson, also created many of his own characters.

Tremaine says Ferguson could improvise live like no one else.

“It was a very distinct honour to work with a guy of that brilliance,” he says. “He was an absolutely brilliant guy. When he used to do the old Rawhide show on radio and he would do all these voices of people and he never had a note in front of him.

“He would just go and this would build into a story, and he did this pretty well daily, and then he would come over in the afternoon and we’d do Gazette, and in those days there was no video tape, so you had to do it live.”

According to CBC News Canada’s website, Ferguson was born in Durham, England, and grew up in London, Ont.

He won many awards during and after his career, including the Governor General’s Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement in 2001.

“I think he was unique,” says Tremaine. “Nobody had the kind of talent, nobody before or since, had the kind of talent he did.”

=====================

Globe and Mail obit:

Max Ferguson
At Northumberland Hills Hospital on March 7th, 2013. Dear husband and friend, much loved and loving father, devoted dog owner, masterful story teller, honoured CBC radio humourist and host. Born in Crook, England, Max was raised and educated in London, Ontario where he attended the University of Western Ontario, intending to become a teacher. A job at CFPL radio in London sidetracked him, and led to an announcer's position with CBC Halifax. There he created one of the CBC's most popular radio shows with a cast of many characters including Rawhide, Marvin Mellobell and Granny, who, along with a number of others, shared the stage simultaneously on live radio. Later in his 52-year radio career, he hosted a daily radio satire show, using his skill for impersonating Canadian politicians, heading into the studio early in the morning to scan the morning's news for material. He wrote and performed his famous skits under tight deadlines, sometimes with as little as five minutes to air time, backed by his talented CBC sound effects crew. In his later years, he hosted a weekly program of esoteric folk music, promoting emerging Canadian artists, and pioneering the genre of world folk music. A true radio host, he respected his audience, and answered every single letter he received from them. The recipient of five honourary university degrees, he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada, awarded the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards for Lifetime Achievement in Broadcasting, and the John Drainie Award for his significant contributions to Canadian Broadcasting, and earned many other performing arts awards. He was awarded the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for his first book And Now Here's Max. He wrote several children's books, narrated National Film Board productions including The Cremation of Sam McGee, and was the original voice of the Marvel Comic character The Hulk. His eclectic, long and rich career also included performing a variety of voices for children's programming on TV Ontario. From his early career days on, he never lost his love for Cape Breton. He was down-to-earth, modest, eccentric, principled, and opinionated with a finely attuned detector of hypocrisy and cant. An imaginative, and adventurous man, he panned for gold, hunted for morels, cut firewood, raised bees, and made maple syrup. In the kitchen, his fortes were his bread and rum-soaked Christmas cakes. To his family, he gave a wondrous childhood. To his friends, his gifts were funny and fascinating stories, to his wife constant love, and, for all, laughter. He is survived by his wife Pauline, sons Scott, Bill and Tony, daughters Nancy, Nonie and Ann, his grandchildren, brothers-and-sisters- in-law and their children. In memory of Max, donations may be made to The Farley Foundation in Milton, Ontario which provides assistance to those in need who require help with the cost of caring for their pets, or to the Cobourg Public Library. Our deep gratitude to the doctors and nursing staff at The Northumberland Hills Hospital for their fine care. A reception in Max's memory will be held at a later date.

[jon]

Saturday March 16, 2013
'Rawhide' was the heart and soul of Canada's airwaves
CBC radio's icon wanted 'to help each Canadian listener start their day smiling, laughing, and maybe a little more aware'
MICHAEL LENNICK
Special to The Globe and Mail
March 16, 2013

Max Ferguson was, in the words of veteran broadcaster Michael Enright, "the CBC's first major radio star." His innate ability to charm audiences and bosses alike with his honesty, wit and caustic yet gentle outlook on life were the hallmarks of his long and storied CBC career - a tour of duty that would last 52 years and include stints as the initially reluctant host (and sizable cast) of Rawhide and The Max Ferguson Show, along with numerous television series, books, films and other projects.

As his daughter Nancy said, "He had the focused intent, however easygoing he sounded, to help each Canadian listener start their day smiling, laughing, and maybe a little more aware. He would have been a wonderful teacher."

Max Ferguson was born in Britain on Feb. 10, 1924 and died in Cobourg, Ont. on March 7. The family came to Canada when he was 3. He was raised in London, Ont., where he did indeed set out to become a teacher, though destiny had other plans. After graduating from the University of Western Ontario in 1946, he was offered a job at local radio station CFPL, beginning his broadcasting career at the stately salary of $25 a week.

He was soon lured to join the CBC as a junior announcer at its Halifax affiliate, Radio CBH. There he would receive the assignment that would change his life, though his initial reaction was to figure out a way to short-circuit the dreaded task.

As he settled into his regular duties at CBH, Mr. Ferguson took his turn at the various assignments - newscaster, record-show host, farm-broadcast announcer, even sound effects man on the Sunday morning program Harmony Harbour - a task requiring him to drop the needle on a record of surf and seagull effects at the appropriate moments.

At the end of his second week, he checked the duty roster to find, to his horror, that he'd been assigned to host a daily program of what was then termed "cowboy music," After Breakfast Breakdown. No fan of the genre, he also knew there was no escaping the mandatory assignment, so at the last possible moment he decided to perform it anonymously. In an ad lib born of desperation as the seconds counted down to his first live broadcast, he thrust out his jaw, clamped his back teeth together, dropped his voice to its lowest register and drawled into the open mic, "Well howdy and welcome to After Breakfast Breakdown. This is your old pal, Rawhide."

As he told the story in his 1967 autobiography And Now... Here's Max, "I then proceeded for the next half-hour to introduce each cowboy record in the most insulting fashion I could devise, popping in at the close of each song to thank the artist and bid him farewell as he 'moseyed off down the canyon, headin' tall in the saddle into the flaming sunset, whose glare would no doubt prevent him from seeing in time that 400-foot sheer drop into the chasm below waiting to claim him for that great Studio in the Sky. ... and not a moment too soon.'"

Far from serving as his one and only foray into the genre he reviled, Rawhide was an instant hit with audiences and brass alike. The caustic old curmudgeon Mr. Ferguson had made up on the spur of the moment (along with the many co-stars he invented, wrote for and voiced in a daily deluge of skits mocking current events: CBC announcer Marvin Mellowbell, The Goomer Brothers, the always-adventurous Granny, and Little Harold - a black-widow spider) would run for 17 years.

Fortunately, the program's popularity soon enabled him to move beyond the "cowboy music" he found so limiting, introducing his listeners to wonderfully eccentric novelty tunes, folk music and oddities both regional and international. This made him a pioneer in what would later be termed "world music" long before the genre existed.

The initial success of Rawhide presented an interesting problem for management, which was starting to receive numerous requests for autographed photos of "the old cowhand." Given that Max Ferguson, all of 22 years old, was neither, the problem was solved with a composite photograph showing the genial host surrounded by several of his characters (all, of course, played by a heavily made-up Max) - a shot masterfully crafted years before the existence of Photoshop. Some 9,000 copies were signed and sent out before he was offered an opportunity to move the show (and his career) down the road to the CBC's flagship station in Toronto, and a national audience.

In 1949, Max Ferguson arrived at the CBC's Toronto headquarters, then located in an aging and dilapidated former girl's school on Jarvis Street. A national audience brought instant acclaim along with new - and national - problems. These included the objections of more than a few listeners, disgusted upon tuning in for their daily dose of military parade music on the morning show Musical March Past, only to be regaled by the overdubbed guitar stylings of Les Paul's Clarinet Polka, Rawhide's peppy theme song.

The reactions to Rawhide, both pro and con, poured in, even from the highest levels. On his second day in Toronto, Mr. Ferguson was amazed to see the newsroom teletypes hammering away with reports that Rawhide had been denounced on the floor of the House of Commons by a Toronto MP, who rose to ask the speaker if he was "aware of this program of meaningless ravings and tripe, disguised in the poorest possible English and an insult to the intelligence of thinking Canadians."

As Mr. Ferguson later wrote, "I was completely stunned - unable even to appreciate the wonderful irony of MPs being disturbed by poor English." It was only when he received a phone call from the grand old dean of CBC announcers, Lorne Greene himself, congratulating the young broadcaster on garnering so much free publicity, that he began to relax into his role as CBC's newly minted morning gadfly.

Rawhide was officially becoming a national treasure, but there remained one outstanding issue: The show ran live at 8:30 every morning, though technically, Mr. Ferguson's shift didn't begin until 9. In other words, he was writing and creating Rawhide (and its huge, unwieldy cast) for fun and for free, before racing to put in the full daily shift expected in return for his starting salary of $1,900 a year. As he wrote in 1967, the many gifts of food and knit goods sent in by loyal fans were welcome indeed.

In 1954, shortly after the show had been moved from mornings to a more popular evening slot, Mr. Ferguson faced an unexpected crisis - a corporate salary ceiling that prevented him, as the junior and lowest-paid announcer on the network's Toronto staff, from receiving the minimal raise he expected. After eight years of writing and performing his daily mélange of music and sketch comedy, along with other on-air duties, he was informed that he'd reached the top of his category.

Having already put in a full day's work, Mr. Ferguson chose to express his displeasure by forgoing that evening's Rawhide performance. Chaos ensued, resulting in a summons before the head of the Trans-Canada Network, Harry J. Boyle.

Fortunately, Mr. Boyle, a clever and creative former producer himself (as well as a future head of the CRTC), was a wise and avuncular boss. Instead of firing Mr. Ferguson, he proposed an innovative solution: The CBC would purchase the Rawhide program from its creator at four times his announcer's salary, and allow it to be produced from any regional centre Mr. Ferguson selected.

Having fallen in love with the Maritimes during his years there, he immediately moved the show, and his rapidly growing family, back to Halifax.

In 1962, after nearly 17 years as the "old cowpoke," Max Ferguson permanently retired Rawhide and his stable of characters, resurfacing shortly thereafter with The Max Ferguson Show, a daily blend of music, chat and topical comedy.

Once again he wrote the scripts and played all the characters live on air, aided by his uncanny ability to impersonate the popular celebrities and politicians of the day.

The Max Ferguson Show also established the long-running on-air partnership between the host and his mellifluous if somewhat madcap announcer, the equally legendary Allan McFee. The show ran for nearly 10 years, its final episode featuring appearances by Pierre Trudeau, Robert Stanfield and John Diefenbaker (all voiced by Mr. Ferguson), expressing relief that they would no longer have to serve radio duty.

After a brief hiatus, The Max Ferguson Show returned in a Sunday morning version. Gone were the skits and characters; this was just Max - his wit, his warmth, his always brilliant takes on the topics of the day, and his uniquely eccentric taste in comedy and music, much of it excavated from his never-revealed "secret source."

(David Lennick, this writer's brother, who introduced many of Mr. Ferguson's classic sketches to a new generation on his own CBC series, Night Camp, advises that Max finally revealed to him that his "secret source" included the deepest, most obscure corners of the store belonging to his friend Sam Sniderman, better known to Torontonians as Sam the Record Man.)

The weekly iteration of The Max Ferguson Show would run for more than 25 years, with Alan McFee at Max's side for most of it. Throughout his career, Mr. Ferguson was also a regular presence on CBC television, co-hosting programs such as the nightly Halifax series Gazette and the Toronto news and interview show Tabloid.

He narrated numerous films and documentaries, and extra-alert listeners could even hear him providing the voice of The Incredible Hulk for the television series The Marvel Super Heroes (with his CBC colleague Paul "Spider-Man" Soles voicing Bruce Banner.)

Max Ferguson retired from broadcasting in 1998 to write, spend more time with his family, and gaze out at the Atlantic from the window of his Cape Breton cottage. In a fitting bracket to the anonymity of his old Rawhide character, he made it a point to respond personally to every listener who wrote during his retirement years.

Over the course of his career, he received many awards, including the 1968 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, the John Drainie Award and the Gordon Sinclair Award. He was appointed an Officer of The Order of Canada in 1970, and was recipient of the Governor-General's Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement in 2001.

Max Ferguson died of a heart attack on March 7, surrounded by his wife of 35 years, the former CBC producer Pauline Janitch (his first wife, Norma Fraser Ferguson, died in 2008), and his children Scott, Nancy, Anne, Nonie, Bill and Tony. According to Nancy, her dad, knowing that his time was near, looked up at his family and said, "And so ends our broadcast for the day."

They were his final words.