The Canadian poet Dorothy Rath was born in Barrie, Ontario, in 1922, where she lived until her death on May 12, 2011. She was married to John Rath. She was a devoted admirer of the Canadian poet Irving Layton. In 1963, Rath wrote a letter to Layton to which Layton sent a reply, marking the beginning of a thirty year friendship. The Layton-Rath correspondence was published in An Unlikely Affair in 1980 by Mosaic Press.
Rath published two works of poetry: All My World Away: Poems, published in 1997, and The Slender Thread, published in 1973.
Robert Bob Redmond was a saxophonist and clarinetist. Born in 1923 in Verdun, Quebec, he resides in Alexandria, Ontario. He was self-taught and began a professional career in 1941 with the Al King Orchestra in Montreal's Auditorium Ballroom. He played with the Stardusters and the Johnny Holmes Orchestra before joining the Canadian Army at age 18 in 1942 where he also worked as a musician, performing in Canada and Europe during World War II. In 1946 he returned to civilian life in Montreal and a job with the Johnny Holmes Orchestra. Between 1947 and 1950 he played with the Johnny Gilbert dance band and the Ray Dawe Orchestra. When Montreal nightclubs began to close he began work in a textile distributing company which he eventually purchased and operated for 30 years. He worked part-time in music with the Escorts, the Bob Hopkins Orchestra, and later his own orchestra.
Giovanni Roco Johnny Reno was born in Montreal May 11, 1917. His parents were from Sicily. He learned to play clarinet at age nine and had private lessons with Joseph Fiori. At 14, he taught himself to play alto and tenor saxophone. By 16, while still in school, he began playing in dance halls in Montreal's St. Henri district. His full-time career started at the Montreal Press Club in 1938 with pianist Al Buckwald. During the 1940s he led his own bands and worked with Jimmy Jones at Rockhead's Paradise (1944-1945) and with Lloyd Duncan at Café St-Michel. He was also the lead alto saxophonist for various big bands, including those conducted by Bix Bélair, Maynard Ferguson, Russ Meredith, and Stan Wood. From 1952 to 1963 he led quartets which played at Café Montmartre. For a year and a half, he worked with Marcel Doré in a show he presented at the Casa Loma night club.He then played in different clubs sporadically before he began working for Joe Christie, accompanying dancers at Chez Paree 1973-1974. Reno also worked as a music copyist, music teacher, studio musician, and composer.
Artist Kina Reusch was born on December 13, 1940 in Montréal. She died at age 47 in 1988. She was largely self-taught, although she took classes at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts School of Art, and at Toronto's Central Technical School and the Ontario College of Art. Both parents were artists and although she had artistic interests as a child, it was not until she was 31 in 1972 that she began to do art full-time. She had numerous exhibitions and won awards and grants from the Canada Council and Quebec's Ministère des Affaires culturelles. She taught summer workshops at Beauce-Arts. In 1976, she contributed the sculptural installation Torii to the Corridart exhibition that was sponsored by the Arts and Culture Committee of the international Olympic Games held in Montreal. She was a major participant in the subsequent legal proceedings known as L'Affaire Corridart. In 1977 she became director of women artists' artist-run Powerhouse Gallery (later renamed La Centrale). Kina Reusch was best known for her abstract weavings. Her paintings, tapestries, and sculptures are in various private and corporate collections, including the Art Bank of the Canada Council and the Collection Prêt d'oeuvres d'art du Musée du Québec.
Boyce Richardson, journalist, writer and documentary filmmaker, was born in Wyndham, New Zealand, March 21, 1928. He was married for 56 years to teacher and poet Shirley (Norton) Richardson (d. 2007). They had four children. Richardson died in Montreal, Quebec, on March 7, 2020 at the age of 92.
Richardson began work as a journalist in New Zealand, then moved to Australia. He travelled in India, then moved to Britain, where he studied writing. He immigrated to Canada in 1954 where he worked first for The Winnipeg Free Press, before hemoved to Montreal and joined The Montreal Star in 1957. He was the Star's correspondent in London from 1960 to 1968. He became a full-time freelancer in 1971, interested in particular in First Nation issues. He wrote for National Film Board films. In these and the book Strangers Devour the Land (1976), he chronicled the assault on the hunting way of life of the Cree Indians of Quebec.
He co-won a 1961 National Newspaper Award for a series of articles on Canada and the European Economic Community. His film Cree Hunter of Mistassini won the British Society for Film and Television Arts Flaherty Award in 1974 and a Melbourne Film Festival Special Award. Other awards include a Golden Apple at the 1990 U.S. National Educational Film and Video Festival and a 1990 Red Ribbon Award at the American Film and Video Festival for Super-Companies. He was invested a Member of the Order of Canada in 2002.