These words about the late great Michael Oscars were written by FOTM Antonia Zerbisias on her condo building's Facebook page.
THE LATE, GREAT MICHAEL OSCARS
(né Jean Michel Orski)
As many of us have sadly learned, yesterday Michael passed away at the Toronto General Hospital after a mercifully not-too-long but hard-fought battle with lung cancer. (I think he was about to turn 78 or 79 but I never dared to ask.)
I thought I'd share a few things about Michael with whom I had had a 20-year professional relationship before we moved into our condo building -- he just after I -- while I was media columnist at the Star and he was the greatest talent agent in Canadian history.
He handled all the big ones, some perhaps less familiar now to the younger among us, from the Dale sisters, Jennifer and Cynthia, to Helen Shaver and Margot Kidder who played Lois Lane to Christopher Reeves' Superman, to many members of SCTV, including Andrea Martin, Martin Short and the recently-deceased Catherine O'Hara (pictured) to Gordon Pinsent to Shirley Douglas (Keifer Sutherland's mother) to Mary Walsh (Marg Delahunty Warrior Princess!) and on and on.
And on.
Michael played a major role in building Canada's arts and entertainment industry, getting his start working with Beatles' manager Brian Epstein in London where he was born Jean Michel Orski to a Belgian mother, who was a stunningly glam milliner to British royalty, and a Polish father who disappeared when Michael was a child.
As written in our monthly condo newsletter in 2016,
<...Michael ... founded and owned a talent management company for forty-five years. Oscars Abrams Zimel & Associates Inc is close-by on Queen between Parliament and River.
Michael’s passion for acting began when he was twelve years old and attending a French Lycée in London, England. He was recruited for a television series about a French family called Notre Ville which aired as a ‘French for School’ program. He later attended drama school in London. After his voice broke and the acting jobs dried up, his long career began in the London mail room of Columbia Pictures when he was sixteen. This quickly led to a job with Sir Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre Company where he worked in the box office and administration in the mid-sixties.
Next, Beatles Manager Brian Epstein offered him an administrative position with the Saville theatre in London’s West End (now converted to movie theatres) which, controversially at the time, featured rock’n’roll concerts on Sunday evenings. (Sundays at the Saville! — Antonia)
In 1967, when he was nineteen, Michael’s family moved to Canada. His first job here was as a French/English translator, but he quickly obtained a post at the Royal Alex as Box Office Manager where Hair, the musical sensation of its time, was about to open. He returned briefly to London in 1971 and worked at the Regent Park’s Open Air Theatre; realizing how much he missed Canada, he returned to a position as an actor’s agent with Phoenix Artists Management. After eighteen months he started his own company representing actors, directors, and writers. He now works closely with many diverse television and film companies, and in theatre with both the Stratford and Shaw Festivals...>
What many people don't know is the role Michael served as a founder, along with the late activist June Callwood, of Casey House, the first hospice in Canada devoted to AIDs patients. In fact, he helped raise the money by launching and producing a multi-year series of absolutely fabulous darling sell-out major production drag shows, "DQ '87", "DQ '88 The Sequin", "DQ '92" and "DQ '95."
Michael loved watching RuPaul's Drag Race. But, as those of us who witnessed his acing the condo's Trivia Nights with his encyclopedic knowledge of movies, TV shows, and Broadway show tunes, that wasn't all he watched. In fact, he turned his master bedroom into his viewing room, with a gigantic screen surrounded by speakers, and walls of DVDs, many of which he shared with residents on the Movie Nights he launched.
After he retired about four years ago, he became a relentless traveller, usually with devoted older sister Micheline, and a die-hard Blackjack player in Vegas. He entertained generously and often, stuffing guests with his devilled eggs and cheese boards. He loved his martinis, Chardonnay, dining out and enjoyed life to the fullest.
And oh how we gossiped about the industry stars and big shots, sharing all the places where the bodies we knew were buried.
Michael was my beloved dear friend, whom I shall miss very much. I shall not be the only one. There are hundreds of Canadians' whose lives have been touch by Michael.
No funeral or memorial event plans have been made yet, to my knowledge.
