Finding Myself in Fashion (2 page)

HOME AND AWAY

I KNOW that I'm blessed. A vast array of incredible opportunities has come my way—from travelling and meeting interesting people to fulfilling countless personal fantasies—and I have never, not for one second, taken any of it for granted. But I also know this about myself: I have never been one to sit back and let life happen. From a young age, I knew that if I wanted to lead not just a good life, or even a great life, but an
extraordinary
life, I'd have to make things happen for myself. That's why, when I was sixteen and a totally inexperienced young actress, I put myself on the line and went to an open casting call that a friend had told me about at the CBC.

I don't know where I got the chutzpah to think that I could compete with the scores of professional actresses who were auditioning for the same role. My performing experience was limited to the drama classes I took when I was twelve years old and a couple of summer camp plays. But somehow, my ambition paid off, and I found myself juggling high school classes and a recurring role in a nationally televised sitcom. Three years later, not content to await discovery in my native land, I rode a Greyhound bus to New York City to enrol at the Herbert Berghof Studio, a prestigious West Village acting school. I found a
low-rent apartment on Riverside Drive and revelled in every aspect of my Big Apple existence, studying my craft and befriending a host of colourful characters who were also working to make their dreams come true.

A couple of years later, I was back in Toronto, frustrated with my studies in York University's theatre department. Determined to go all out for my art, I gathered up all the tips I had made as a cocktail waitress in the summer of 1973 and headed to the City of Light to study with Étienne Decroux, the legendary mime master who had mentored Marcel Marceau. I wanted to perfect a technique, to master the art of illusion on stage, and I was determined to learn from the best. The following year, I came to the realization that while I was devoted to being an artist, what I really craved was security. So I moved back home, enrolled in theatre at York once again, and started plotting what to do next.

An opportunity to move to St. John's, Newfoundland, presented itself when my boyfriend was offered a fellowship to study at Memorial University. Embarking on a major East Coast adventure with the man I loved struck me as the most proactive thing I could do. So we got married, on September 2, 1975, and moved to sleepy St. John's the next day. We didn't know a soul in town, and my new hubby immediately entered his postgraduate studies at MUN's folklore department, leaving me to fend for myself. I set out to find a job, planning to give mime classes on the side. As the only mime artist in Newfoundland, I miraculously and ironically landed a gig in radio. I had the gall to pitch myself as an arts reporter, and since there was a vital arts scene in St. John's, but no one reporting on it for radio, I was given the chance to be a full-time writer/performer for CBC's
Radio Noon
show. In addition to my reporting duties, I also produced a variety of arts specials for the network. And that was the beginning of my media career.

Three years later, in 1978, my husband was ready to launch into his thesis on urban folklore, going beyond the tales of local fiddlers, fishermen, and sailors to explore the lives of cabbies, strippers, and cocktail waitresses. Now that I had cut my teeth on local radio, I also felt ready for a move back to the big city. So we returned to Toronto,
where my husband began working on his thesis, while I, armed with my arsenal of demo tapes, approached every program director at every radio station in the city. A couple of weeks later, 1050 CHUM, the number-one Top 40 AM station, bit. Largely because its program director, J.R. Wood, liked my “young-sounding” voice, I was recruited to be CHUM's “good news girl,” working out of the station's gritty little Yonge Street newsroom, booking, producing, writing, recording, and voicing seventeen different ninety-second lifestyle featurettes a week. My eclectic contributions were called “CHUM Reports,” and my regular sign-off—a cocky “I'm Jeanne Beker”—became a calling card for me, getting my name out there in a bold and snappy way.

That same year, CHUM Radio purchased Citytv, a hip downtown cable television station. Almost immediately, the CHUM execs decided to cross-promote their radio personalities on TV. I was chosen to co-host
The New Music
, a weekly magazine series on City, with a handsome young deejay named J.D. Roberts (better known today as John Roberts, formerly of CNN and now with Fox). The show was groundbreaking and took viewers behind the scenes of the music world, interviewing rock stars in their hotels and dressing rooms, on the road, in studios, and backstage. One Toronto pop critic dubbed J.D. and me “video virgins,” and indeed we hadn't done any television reporting before (though I had TV performing experience from my acting days). But most of the musicians we were putting on the show were just as green: this was 1979, pre-MTV, and the art of talking on TV was foreign to most pop stars. We were all flying by the seats of our pants. But the musicians soon began to develop their TV personalities, and so did we, and before long, we flitted between radio and television effortlessly.

Shortly after my stint on
The New Music
began, my first marriage ended. My husband was offered the chance to return to Memorial University to teach, even before his Ph.D. work had been completed. It was an offer he couldn't refuse. But for me, the prospect of going back to Newfoundland when my Toronto television career had just started to take off was unthinkable. We had grown apart, and I knew I had to follow this new path of my own. So I stayed behind, eager to embrace all the possibilities that were coming my way.

Around the same time, I began having a relationship with the all-night deejay at CHUM—a charming and personable guy who had the most exquisite blue eyes I had ever seen. His on-air name was Bob Magee, but his real name was Denny O'Neil. We fell madly in love, and six years later, on February 7, 1986, we eloped and got married. A year after that, our first beautiful daughter, Rebecca Leigh—Bekky— was born. And in 1989, we were blessed once again with the birth of Sarah Jo—or Joey.

I was drunk with happiness. My life had blossomed into everything I could ever have hoped for—a gorgeous, loving husband; adorable kids; and a fantastic, creative job. I had learned that if you want exceptional things to happen in your life, you have to fuel the fires and work at conjuring that magic for yourself. But you also have to learn to bite the bullet sometimes, and hang tough. Often, those things you've toiled at so relentlessly are the same things that can tear you apart. Suddenly, there I was with two little kids who needed to be tucked in every night and a job that required me to travel the world. Denny was incredibly supportive, and a great father to our little girls. And five days a week, we had a loving housekeeper/nanny who helped fill in the blanks. But for me, not always being able to be there for them was an endless source of anxiety. I was conflicted to the point that feeling torn became second nature to me.

The guilt started right after Bekky was born in 1987. I was thirty-five years old, having waited patiently for my career to take off before I ventured into motherhood. I felt tremendously fulfilled. Still, I couldn't stop to savour the joys of parenthood for long. My career seemed just as demanding as my newborn baby. In retrospect, I can hardly believe that my little Bekky was only four months old when I first left her to go on a two-week trip to London and Paris. I'm not sure how I found the strength. But there wasn't any option—this was what I'd signed up for.

It was Moses Znaimer, the innovative mastermind behind Citytv, who deserves credit for toughening me up.
Fashion Television
had been on the air for less than two years, and the show—and the team—was just hitting its stride. I was about eight and a half months pregnant— and determined to work for as long as I possibly could—when Moses,
in his wily way, started putting the show's lovely young production co-coordinator on camera, encouraging her to hone her reporting skills. Whether or not this ambitious young woman was ready for “prime time” wasn't the issue. Call it old-fashioned insecurity, but I had the sneaking suspicion that this gal was after my job, and Moses appeared more than happy to dangle the notion that I could be easily replaced. He also taunted me at least once with the questionable greeting “Hi chubby!” when he passed me in the hallway. Add to all that my hormonal rage, burgeoning belly, hefty weight gain (I gained something like forty-five pounds during my first pregnancy!), and you had the perfect recipe for professional paranoia.

One of the lovely young production co-coordinator's duties was to pull my wardrobe for the show—not an easy job at a time when people still tried to disguise pregnant bellies with tent-like maternity wear. To make matters worse, it was the year Lycra gave new meaning to body-conscious fashion, and skinny silhouettes were all the rage. I remember this enthusiastic young woman bringing me a silver leather jacket that made me look like a human Sputnik. “Oh, gawd!” I wailed. “This is so wrong!” Granted, I must have come off as some difficult diva, but the co-coordinator snapped and said something unsympathetic, like, “Well, what do you expect?” It was depressing, but it fuelled my determination to hang on to what I had achieved. So when Moses made a point of reminding me that my job might be in jeopardy if I didn't hop right back as soon as I possibly could, I took the bait.

“When do you plan on coming back after you have the baby?” Moses asked me about a week before my due date.

“Well, I hadn't really thought about it,” I replied.

“Because you know there's a long lineup of twenty-two-year-olds outside my office door, all vying for your job,” he said.

“Oh, don't worry about me,” I replied instantly. “I'll only take a couple of weeks off.”

And so, much to the chagrin of my potential competition, I convinced my producers that there'd be no need to replace me. They'd only have to go into two or three repeats, I assured them, because I would be back in a flash.

True to my word, I was out covering my first story only two and a half weeks after delivering my baby. Actually, I was back even before that. Two days after I got home from the hospital, my producer sent a crew to my house to record some voice-overs. To this day, I'm not quite sure how I did it.

Unquestionably, it had a lot to do with the weekends we spent together as a family, all cozied up at our quaint Muskoka cottage, and with the comforting bedtime routines we followed whenever I was in town. In later years, when I was away, I had a cellphone with me at all times. I smile when I think of the times I was just about to interview some VIP halfway round the world when my phone rang and I had to field a question about homework or weekend plans or a favourite piece of clothing that had disappeared. I was there for my kids as much I could be. They were on my mind every moment I was away from them. These were the days before text messaging and email, so I kept the home fax line busy, sending loving missives, and Denny would help the girls send their notes and drawings to hotel fax machines wherever I was staying. Every spare minute was spent shopping for the kids, seeking out the perfect little gifts. I always delighted in seeing their faces when I finally got home and unpacked my bags to reveal the treasures I had brought back.

I may have looked back a few times over the years and wondered how things would have played out if I hadn't been so career-driven, but I can't say I would have done things any other way, even if I were given the choice. Has it torn me to pieces sometimes, this excruciating split between home and work? Without a doubt! But it's a torment that I've thrived on in a way—the kind of crazy head/heart dilemma that makes me feel alive sometimes. Nothing worth anything comes easy in this life. We'd all be bored if it did.

SURVIVAL MODE

WHEN WE CELEBRATED the twenty-fifth anniversary season of
Fashion Television
in the fall of 2010, interviewers kept asking me how I had managed to beat the odds in an industry that eats its young. Not only had I hung in there for over a quarter century, but I had thrived, and fresh fuel was continually being added to my career fires. “How do you do it?” reporters asked. “How do you explain your longevity?” There are a thousand reasons. But one answer, the most succinct and all-encompassing, says it best: because I'm a survivor. It's just who I am, and how I was raised—as the daughter of two courageous people who were themselves true survivors.

For as long as I can remember, my mother was adamant about sharing her personal story. Actually, both my parents felt compelled to talk about how they had survived the Holocaust: the terror, the anguish, the hunger, the pain, the loneliness, and then the miracles. Their poignant stories became part of my DNA, and took me to a place that was light years away from where most of the kids I played with dwelled. I knew from a very young age that I was on this planet thanks to my parents' wits and some kind of divine intervention. And even though I remember hiding under my bed when I was about five
years old, just so I wouldn't have to listen to any more “war stories,” I'm thankful my parents expressed themselves so openly, sharing the experiences that helped define them.

My parents were both from Kozowa, a small town in eastern Poland (now Ukraine), which was invaded by the Germans in 1941. My father, Joseph, was born in 1913—the son of Beryl, a cobbler, who died when my dad was just fourteen years old. Since he was the eldest in the family, my dad had to leave school and find work to support his mother, Gitl (Genia in Polish), after whom I'm named, and his two brothers and sister. In 1937, my father joined the Polish army and became an officer. A couple of years later, when the Polish army was overwhelmed by the Germans and then the Soviets, he defected and returned to Kozowa, to be reunited with my mother, whom he had been dating secretly (to avoid the disapproval of her religious father).