We haven't seen or heard much of Ralph Benmergui in the last four or five years. But he surfaced a few weeks ago in Toronto in a seemingly unlikely showcase, as the weekday morning man for radio station CJRT-FM, better known as Jazz.FM91.
Benmergui, who turned 49 this week, was a near-ubiquitous presence nationally on CBC-TV a decade or so ago, most notably as the co-host of the network's now-defunct Midday and later as king of the ill-fated Friday Night with Ralph Benmergui. People of a certain age used to think he was going to be bigger than Peter Gzowski and Peter Mansbridge. You could even call George Stroumboulopoulos "today's Ralph Benmergui." But for the last 10 years, Benmergui's career -- or at least the public perception of it -- has been an over-under-sideways-down kind of thing.
He doesn't see it that way, of course, and neither does the new president and CEO of Jazz.FM91, Ross Porter. Benmergui and Porter go back at least 20 years, to when both were working for CBC Radio in Winnipeg. In fact, Porter gave Benmergui his first on-air job, as the host of CBC Stereo's late-night pop-culture program Nightlines. They've kept in touch over the years, including the highly successful ones Porter enjoyed as the smoke-cured, brandy-soaked larynx for CBC Radio's After Hours jazz show. Until he moved to Toronto in July, Porter had been the Winnipeg-based vice-president of Cool-TV and Cool-FM, while Benmergui worked as a producer of TV shows, most notably CBC's Nerve.
For Porter, "it's always been in the back of my mind, 'Ralph's the guy I'd love to have to do mornings' . . . He's probably the most talented or one of the most talented broadcasters I've ever worked with." The two amigos started to talk in the early fall and gradually the idea for Benmergui in the Morning -- yes, that's what it's called -- took shape.
For Benmergui, the hardest part of his new gig hasn't been replacing Tish Iceton as morning host, or waking up each weekday at 4:30 a.m. to be on-air at 6 ("I got trained out of sleeping late by having two kids") or even taping commercials for Sam the Record Man: "It's about finding your voice again, pacing yourself, being yourself, realizing, 'Okay, I've got to get up and do this again tomorrow for four hours. Let's avoid the adrenalin burn.' "
Porter -- who says he's going to do his own show on the station, "but not tomorrow" -- is very pleased so far with his newest employee. "What I love about Ralph is his sensitivity, his observations on life . . . I think he's a brilliant interviewer, and he sounds like a host; he doesn't sound like a disc jockey, you know what I mean? It's about space, taste, silence, having a natural curiosity about life."
The pollsters at Ipsos-Reid had some good news and bad news about CBC's recent choice of Tommy Douglas as our Greatest Canuck from a telephone survey of 1,000 Canadians a week after the Douglas coronation. Respondents were asked who Douglas was and given four answers to choose from. Blessedly, almost 60 per cent correctly picked "former premier and father of Canadian health care." The bad news? Twenty per cent said they didn't know and 16 per cent identified Douglas as either "a famous writer of Canadian history books" or "a World War One/Canadian Victoria Cross war hero." Five per cent of the respondents agreed the Saskatchewan premier and NDP leader was actually "the inventor of Canada's Space Arm for the U.S. shuttlecraft."
Are they, or aren't they? Engaged, that is. Enquiring minds are wondering if Canada's Leanne Shapton, 30, famous for her design and graphics work for Saturday Night, the National Post and Toro, is really going to be tying the knot next year with James Truman, the 46-year-old British-born Manhattanite who makes more than $1-million (U.S.) a year as editorial overseer of the 20 or so magazines in the Condé Nast stable. (They include Vogue, The New Yorker, GQ.) They're definitely an item, but has the notoriously press-shy Truman popped the question? Some say yes, others no.