And So It Ends

Everything look so bright for Ivan Ackery. That was until 1969. By then, Famous Players was controlled by the U.S. Corporation, Gulf and Western Industries. Gulf and Western introduced a policy of compulsory retirement by the age of 65. Ackery had turned 65 five years earlier, on October 30, 1964.

What a shock. This man spent 48 years in the business and had an unparalleled record of getting people into the theatre. Now it was all over just because of a number.

“For me,” he reflected eleven years later, “it came as a sorry and sudden end to the career I’d devoted my life to and expected to carry on in until old age and ill health rendered me incapable . . . There’s no justice and little sense in putting a healthy, experienced individual to pasture just because he’s had a birthday . . . Still, the company had been wonderfully good to me, and I was always proud to be associated with it and with the fine men I worked with over the years, who gave me so much encouragement . . . Over the years Famous Players grew to be Canada’s largest operator of motion picture theatres and one of the largest in the world. I’m as proud of them now as I always was of being associated with them.”

His final day was December 28, 1969 - two months past his 70th birthday.

“On my very last evening as manager of the Orpheum,” Ivan recalled, “when the final audience had left, I sat down to have a drink with my replacement, Ted Bielby. Later, I walked onto the stage in the empty theatre and looked up into the balcony and said out loud, “Goodbye, old friend. I’ve sure loved working with you all these years.”

From the dark at the top of the balcony came a reply like the voice of a ghost. “We all loved you too, Mr. Ackery.” It was the night watchman.

But forced retirement couldn't keep Ivan down. He kept in the business by doing freelance promotion work but it wasn't the same as the daily excitement of promoting new pictures.

Vancouver hadn't forgotten Mr. Ackery. On October 30, 1985, in honour of Ivan's 86th birthday, a celebration was held at the Orpheum. The event was emceed by Red Robinson and Mayor Mike Harcourt was there to declare it Ivan Ackery Day. A standing ovation brought tears to Ivan's eyes. “I want to thank most of all the public. The public of Vancouver has been so great to me.”

On October 29, 1989 - a day before his 90th birthday - Ivan Ackery died at St. Paul's hospital. The next day, Denny Boyd of the Vancouver Sun wrote a beautiful column dedicated to Ackery.

“He was a lonely man the past few years after his retirement. He had never married and had no family. He walked around the neighborhood in his checked pants, looking for someone he could talk to about the old days when he was the show business king of Granville Street. The man who once partied with Gary Cooper now made an adventure of buying a single pork chop at Safeway . . .

“Back in 1963 he told an interviewer his secret fear was retirement. It was a well-grounded fear. He gave 35 years of his life to promoting the Orpheum and when he was retired he had nothing to fall back on, no loved ones, no hobbies, only the past.

“One day, on a bench on the seawalk, as we soaked our bones in sun warmth, I tried to tell him exactly what I have said in this column, that he saved a generation of us from sadness and hopelessness, what an exhilaration it was to swing off the streetcar and see the flashing lights on the massive marquee and know that they were beckoning each one of us individually. He gave us beauty and adventure and wonder, and took only our dimes.

“I don’t know if what I said stayed with him. I hope it did, because I owed him something. My whole generation did.”

I hope you have enjoyed this look at Ivan Ackery. Until I started researching Vancouver history, I had never heard of the man and until I started this series, he was just the name of a promoter. However, in the last three weeks that I have been writing on Ivan, I feel like I have come to know and admire him. I admit that my  tears have flown freely writing this entry.

Thanks goes to The History of Metropolitan Vancouver website for the above information.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Ivan and the Princess

The year 1958  was a banner year for Orpheum manager and master promoter, Ivan Ackery. As part of the British Columbia Centennial, Vancouver held the first Vancouver International Festival. Vancouverites were given the opportunity to enjoy a rare feast of music.

Acts performing in Vancouver included Andre Previn; the Fraser McPherson jazz nonet; Lance Harrison and his Dixieland band; Doug Parker and his 15-piece jazz group; Eleanor Collins; the Oscar Peterson Trio; Totem City Jazz Band; the Dave Quarin quintet; the Ray Norris quintet; the Chris Gage trio; the Jack Fulton quintet; the Jim Kilburn quintet; the Wilf Wylie trio and Dave Pepper’s 14-piece old-time jazz band.

The great Australian coloratura, Joan Sutherland, made her North American debut during the festival on the stage at the Orpheum. (An interesting fact, Sutherland and the Orpheum share the same birthday. The Orpheum opened on the lady's first birthday.)

“For me,” Ivan wrote, “the biggest event was the attendance of Princess Margaret at a Vancouver Symphony concert in the Orpheum, with the great Bruno Walter as guest conductor . . . She came in a beautiful long white gown, a diamond tiara on her dark hair, every inch a royal Princess, escorted by RCMP officers, smart in their scarlet tunics. They formed an honor guard, and made you feel proud to be a Canadian . . .

“As we entered the auditorium, the sell-out audience of 3,000 rose to their feet and an absolute hush settled over the theatre. The Princess was seated in the centre of the front row of the loges, flanked on the right by Lieutenant-Governor Frank Ross and on the left by Festival president W.C. Mainwaring. She listened with rapt attention to Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, to Maureen Forrester in solo performance, to the male voices of the Vancouver Bach Choir and the Vancouver Festival Orchestra.

“The red-coated Mounties were at every exit, with plain clothes officers all over the place, looking so nonchalant that they stood out a mile. I was anxious over the temperature in the theatre, which our new air-conditioner was keeping at a perfect 74 degrees [Fahrenheit], rendering all my fretfulness unnecessary . . .”

Four years before this, Ivan had purchased property, a half acre, at Copper Cove. (Just around the corner from Horseshoe Bay) It cost him $4,800 and he built a cabin on the property where he lived until he sold it in 1974.

“I had a beautiful home in a priceless setting, and I loved it. There was lots to occupy my time and my interest. I wasn’t a gardener, but I did the same as I’d done in show business, just learned as I went along, and in time the property became a very beautifully landscaped one, to add to the natural beauty of its surroundings. I built a rockery, with stairs right down to the water, and planted it all myself, after a good deal of investigation and study into which kinds of plants would grow where. It became so attractive, and so popular, that the sightseeing buses used to bring people to see it.”

I am almost at the end of my feature on Ivan Ackery. Friday, I will tell how this legendary man's career ended.

Thanks goes to The History of Metropolitan Vancouver website for the above information.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Ivan and the Kids

The children's shows at the Orpheum were legendary. It wasn't unusual for 5,000 kids to attend the Saturday shows in two shifts. Ivan would arrange to have short talks by the chief of the fire department or police force. Even the mayor would sometimes show up.

But the most favourite had to be Bambi.

“One of the kids’ favorite performers was Bambi, my little singing chihuahua dog,” Ivan recalled. “I’d discovered that when I would sing to Bambi he’d put his little head back, open his mouth wide, and wail—hardly complimentary, but funny! One day I took him out on stage with me at a matinee and we did a number for the kids. I sang Sweet Adeline, and Bambi went ‘aaaoooo.’ I sang ‘my Adeline,’ and Bambi went ‘aaaoooo.’ My turn: ‘You’re the flower of my heart . . .’ ‘Aaaoooo’—he was interrupting me now, ‘Sweet Adeliiiiiiine.’ The kids just ate it up!

“The act got so popular and got so much press coverage that MacLean’s Magazine decided to send a reporter out to do a story on it. They were to be there, reporter and photographer, on a certain Saturday morning and, believe me, I was excited. This was my big moment as an entertainer, too!

“When the day came, and our time came, all the stage lights were darkened, with only the spot on Bambi and me as we entered and trotted toward stage centre.

“The microphone rose up out of the floor, as usual, and as Bambi reached it he did something he’d never done before on stage—he raised his little leg and thoroughly dampened that mike! I nearly died! The place just went crazy, with 2,800 kids hooting and howling with laughter and the reporter got a story he hadn’t expected—nor had any of us. Talk about being upstaged!”

I want to thank the History of Metropolitan Vancouver website for the above information.

I hope you find the beauty around you.