November 16, 2005

Presenting: Bruce Bell - Comedian, Actor, Playwright, Renowned Historian and Lover of Toronto

The work on this website continues to allow me to connect with all sorts of interesting people. Some time in September my brother called me from Austria and told me that he had read about this fellow - Bruce Bell - in a German travel magazine. Apparently he gives guided culinary tours of the St. Lawrence Market and my brother felt he was a really interesting individual.

Needless to say, the minute I hung up the phone with my brother I was on the Internet searching for "Bruce Bell", found his website www.brucebelltours.com, and dialed him up on the phone. Since then I have had a chance to go on Bruce's St. Lawrence Market tour and I have to say this tour really stirred an interest in Toronto's history in me. Bruce's tours are certainly unique and entertaining. I also found out that Bruce is the official historian of many historic buildings in Toronto, truly a recognized authority on Toronto history.

Because I enjoyed his tour so much I suggested to Bruce that we collaborate on a regular basis, which will give me an opportunity to sample his other tours while he has allowed me to republish some of his existing articles about Toronto and its history. Bruce covers some fantastic stuff, including the Distillery District, the Royal York Hotel, St. James Cathedral, the Gooderham Building - a.k.a. the Flatiron Building, Toronto Island and many more. His stories, as his tours, are informative and entertaining at the same time.

Of course I wanted to find out more about Bruce, a person who has carved a very unique niche for himself, essentially combining his expertise in Toronto's history with his performing arts background. So without further ado, let me introduce you to Bruce Bell.....

Bruce Bell (centre) with Toronto Mayor Miller (left)
and Chicago Mayor Daley (right)

1. Please tell us about your background (I believe you grew up in exciting Sudbury....)

I was born and raised in Sudbury Ont where my dad worked for INCO as a nickel miner. Both he and my mom had a great love of history which I seem to have gotten from them. History was always my favorite subject in school; however at an early age I realized I wanted a career in showbusiness.

2. Please tell us why you decided to move to Toronto and what it was first like when you arrived.
I wanted to be an actor so during the summer of 1972 I took off with a friend to Toronto where I got a small walk on role in the movie CLASS OF ’44. I came back to Sudbury to finish high school but I was bitten by the acting bug so I left school and joined the Sudbury Theatre Centre and my professional stage debut in THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER that winter in 1972 at the age of 17.
The following January I left Sudbury for good and moved back to Toronto.

3. You initially worked in Toronto as a busboy at the Famous Royal York Hotel. While there you also met a lot of celebrities. Please tell us about that time.

I arrived in Toronto in January 1973 and like thousands of people who came before me I hurried out of the cavernous Union Station onto Front Street with the taxi cabs lined up, the people hurrying to catch the 5:15, the vendors, the pigeons, the noise, the rush, the smells and the realization that I wasn’t in Sudbury anymore.

As I stood on the plaza waiting for a cab I also thought about where I should start looking for a job when I found myself staring up at the massive Royal York Hotel rising up from across and thought why not try and get a job there?

There was one job available that I felt I was pretty much suited for, busboy in the famed Imperial Room. During my year spent bussing tables in the opulent dinning room I also happened to ingratiate myself with some of the biggest stars in showbizness as they passed through on the lucrative supper club circuit.

I stood in awe (hidden behind the curtains because busboys weren’t allowed in the room during showtime) as Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennet, Duke Ellington, The Mills Bros, Peggy Lee, Cyd Charise, Count Bassie and the mesmerizing Marlene Dietrich performed in the vastness of the Imperial Room. I felt it was a once in a lifetime education to see these great entertainers in action and it has stayed with me my entire life.

Bruce (right) with Chicago Mayor Daley
in the St. Lawrence Market

4. You also worked as a stand-up comedian. Please tell us more about that time, what was it like, where did you perform?

After I left the Imperial Room I wanted to be in showbiz myself full time, not an easy thing to do I soon realized. I took a job as an usher at the Royal Alexandra Theatre where for the next couple of years I got to see some of the world’s greatest actors in action.

The most down to earth actor I met back in those heady days was, the legend herself, Katherine Hepburn. She would let me sit with her in her dressing room while she dabbed on what she called a necessary evil of showbiz - her make-up - and tell me stories of old Hollywood. But for all the great stars I was rubbing shoulders with it just made me want a life on the stage for myself. While working at the Alex I did manage a walk-on role in a production of Cinderella that just added fuel to my fire.

In the mid 1970’s I became friends with Mark Breslin who was starting up a comedy club called Yuk Yuks and asked if I would be interested in joining. While not a standup myself I loved comedy and together with a friend of mine Colleen Pierce we formed a comedy duo named BELL and PIERCE where for the next couple of years we performed all over Toronto, on TV, radio and even made a movie together : THE RISE AND FALL OF TONY TROUBLE, a satire of old Hollywood movies with me as fictional 40’s film star Tony Trouble. By the mid 1980’s I had branched out on my own and became a standup comic and started to do TV commercials to subsidize my income.

5. You have also been working as an actor and a playwright. Please tell us more about that.

As much as loved the world of standup by the late 1980’s I felt I wanted to branch out as my comic routines were more in the vein of long stories that I would act out so I decided to write another play. I had written a few plays earlier, including one based on the life of stage legends John Barrymore and Tallulah Bankhead and one that our movie THE RISE AND FALL OF TONY TROUBLE was based on.

I wrote I SLEPT WITH TONY TROUBLE in 1989 (as a sequel to the Rise and Fall) and became a great success on the fringe circuit her in Toronto and had productions in Edinburgh festival, Stratford, Vancouver and London, England.
After that I wrote and produced a few more plays and in 2000 I won a Toronto Arts Council award for playwriting.

However, as much as loved acting, comedy and playwriting I felt the early passion I once felt was gone, and now I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing something that I loved. All my life I loved history and somehow I wanted to make a living writing about history, especially Toronto’s, for a living.

St. Lawrence Hall

6. Furthermore, you write a history column about the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Community. How and why did you become such a history buff?

I moved to the St Lawrence neighbourhood in 1993 where I found myself smack dab in the middle of where Toronto started as the town of York way back in colonial times. I had been reading about our early history for years and now I actually was living in an area where it all began. In 1999 I began to submit stories to the St Lawrence Community Bulletin which was the main newspaper for people who lived downtown and from that a new career was born that combined my love of acting, writing, comedy and history all into one.

7. You seem to have a special love for Toronto. Why is that?

My love for Toronto began as a kid when we used to come down from Sudbury to visit the CNE every year. Even as a young child I had a fascination with this big beautiful city with its subway, skyscrapers and all theses people on the street!
I think anyone coming from a small town to Toronto either is completely overwhelmed and wants to go back home or like me wants to stay.

8. What are some of your favorite historic Toronto places and stories?

I love Union Station and still to this day when a friend calls up and wants to meet for coffee or a walk around I always say lets meet in front of Union Station. Not only is it a beautiful building but its very vibrant. I think of Union Station not only as the gateway to our innercity but as the heart of Toronto.

I have a great affection for St Lawrence Hall also. It was there during the mid 1800’s that some of the world's greatest singers, speakers, dancers, actors, writers, politicians all came to entertain and inform Torontonians in a time before TV, radio, movies and the Internet.

The Great Hall is one of the only rooms left in Canada where all the Fathers of Confederation had met and during its day St Lawrence Hall was the scene of many anti slavery meetings denouncing the practice of slavery that America was fully entrenched in.

9. You are the official historian for a number of famous Toronto buildings, including the St. Lawrence Market, St. Lawrence Hall, the Hockey Hall of Fame and others. How did that come about?

As I began to write my regular column and delve into the past of some of our greatest architecturally treasures I came up with the idea of approaching the owners of these magnificent structures with the idea of making me their official historian as a way for me to become more involved in these buildings. Its strictly voluntary and makes for good stories when I do my tours.

Great Ballroom at St. Lawrence Hall

10. Today you offer special tours of Toronto, such as the St. Lawrence Market Tour, the Distillery District Tour and the Toronto Art Deco Tour. Please tell us more about these tours.

I try and add a personal touch to my tours (hence my honourary historian titles) and some of my tour guests often comment jokingly that the tours are more often about me than the city itself. I like to combine my love of history with a bit of drama, making a tour with me a walk my guests are not likely to forget. I look upon the sites I visit as a stage set.

With the Distillery I like to tell of the Irish Imigrants who after fleeing the great famine back home in the 1850’s standing before the very gates we are now about to enter ourselves and thinking what they were thinking, a new start of life.

With my Art Deco tour I like to take my guest back to the roaring 1920’s when flappers decked out in furs would drive up to the bank in their sportscars and withdraw money for a night on the town, never thinking the big crash was just around the corner.

11. What's in store for Bruce Bell over the next few months and years?

My only goal in life professional speaking is to continue to do what I do for as long as I can. I have finally found something that not only is a passion of mine but a good way to make a living, telling stories about the greatest city on earth. Toronto.

Thank you Bruce, for telling us about yourself. We certainly share a love of this city and I look forward to sampling one of your other tours in the near future. All the best...

Useful Books:
Here is Bruce's brand-new book about Toronto

Related Articles:
Here's my story about Bruce Bell's St. Lawrence Market Tour
Bruce's historic account of the Gooderham and Warts Distillery
Bruce's historic account of the Royal York Hotel
Bruce's history of Toronto Island - Part I
Bruce's history of Toronto Island - Part II
Bruce's history of Toronto's St. James Cathedral
Bruce's history of Toronto's Flatiron Building
Bruce's historic account of the St. Lawrence Market (Part 1)
Bruce's historic account of the St. Lawrence Market (Part 2)
Bruce's story about the most haunted corner in Toronto