Bill Bellman
Bill
Bellman - Host Almanac CBUT Vancouver 1950s; co-founder with Jack Stark
CHQM/CHQM-FM Vancouver 1959/60; President CHQM Vancouver to 1973; host Some of
Those Days CBC-TV Vancouver 1961-65; interviewer Lively Arts CBC-TV Vancouver
***
Program:
Some Of Those Days CBC TV
This
nostalgia series combined song, music, and archival photographs and newsreel
footage to evoke periods between the turn of the century and 1945. Each program
in the 196l series marked out a chronological block of two or three years from
the end of World War I through the years of the Depression to the end of World
War II. The host from 1961 to 1965 was Bill Bellman. The program also featured
Barney Potts, who took Bellman's place as host and narrator for the final
season.
***
Personality:
Bill Bellman listed as working at
CBU
radio and TV 1954
***
Program:
Almanac CBC TV
Bill
Bellman Television show anchor - Almanac with Miller and Fortune
***
Bill
Bellman (CBC News Personality) adopted the format of KABL in San Francisco and
opened Vancouver's CHQM -- AM & FM simulcast of beautiful music... it was
this unique format aimed at the upscale market that helped to drive sales of FM
radio – David Bray October 2002
***
AWAY BACK then, when the
purchase of a 12-inch black-and-white television set was a risk venture, they
seemed an oddly-matched trio as they sat in their canvas-backed chairs under
the hard, hot lights, clipboards clenched tightly in their manicured fingers.
The sandy-haired one in the
middle (caring viewers worried about his weight) would open the show with a
voice that boomed like the low bells in a cathedral tower. That was Bill
Bellman.
The little dark-haired guy was
pure Ivy League, suave; dark suits with narrow lapels, skinny ties, perfect
teeth, and shy smile - an early sex symbol. That was Alan Millar.
The guy with the logger's build
and the woolly shirts had a generous honker that gave the impression he always
had a head cold. It was a problem for an up-beat weather man. But when Bob
Fortune squeaked his chalk on the $25 upright blackboard that was his only
prop, all Vancouver winced.
That was the pioneer cast of
Vancouver's first big-league current affairs television show, Almanac, which
ran for six years on the CBC in the early 1950s.
It debuted two years after CBC
Vancouver opened its operation in 1953 in that warren of offices and studios on
West Georgia. Every one in town who could wiggle a set of rabbit-ears watched
Almanac because the only alternative was Channel 12, The Lone Ranger, Porky Pig
and Ding-Dong circus.
In retrospect, Almanac now seems
comically soft. It was a current affairs show and if your garden produced a
beet that looked like Peter Lorre, which was current enough for five minutes on
Almanac. It was just three guys talking about Vancouver. And they did it live,
30 minutes a night, five nights a week.
I met them all over the years,
Bellman during his thunderous proxy fights over ownership of CHQM and CKVU;
Millar on social occasions; Fortune when, during a brief stint as a cityside
reporter, I had to phone him daily and write a pithy Page 1 weather story under
his byline.
Len Lauk, retired now as the
regional director of CBC Vancouver, got his first producing job with Almanac in
1955. He said yesterday, "There's absolutely no question that Almanac was
the first big-league television show in Vancouver. It wasn't the hard-edged
show that the 7 O’clock Show became a few years later, when furrowed-brow
television became the vogue. The chemistry between the three guys was perfect.
Bellman was the perfect anchor, Millar was the charmer, and besides, the
weather, Fortune was doing ecology features before the word was coined.
"And it was live
television, with all the tension of going live. We brought two camels on the
live set one night, one from the Shrine Circus, one from a game farm. I don't
remember why we did it, but I'll never forget what happened. These camels were
starved for affection and they fell passionately in love with each other right
on camera. They tore up the set, destroyed it."
Television evolved, grew up,
some say. Almanac was replaced and forgotten by most. We're bombarded with
television signals, but nobody does the quaint programming Almanac did when the
medium was young. Which may be a pity.
Fortune packed away his squeaky
chalk and retired to pursue his outdoors interests.
Bellman left the CBC and mortgaged
his home to found a new concept in radio broadcasting, the
"good-music" station, CHQM. In addition to pioneering the FM market
in Vancouver, QM was unique in that it didn't give a damn about the teenage
market and it was curiously selective in the commercials it aired. Bellman
explained his taste code as "deodorant commercials, yes, but deodorant
commercials that explain the reason why, never." Bellman retired from
broadcasting a rich man. Recently he donated $1 million for the construction of
a First Nations Longhouse on the UBC campus.
Millar, the perfectly groomed
charmer, moved east in 1960 where he completed a 40-year career as interviewer,
host and lyrics writer. Sadly, he died in June at 62. His wife, the singer
Terry Dale, tells me, "After 33 years of marriage, I can only say I have
been truly blessed. We had a great life together and he was a most loving and
devoted father."
Three guys on a stark CBC set
who left a vivid mark.
Denny Boyd Vancouver Sun
***
Bill Bellman and Art Phillips –
two main founders of the electors action movement (TEAM)
***
I do not
say that because what is done in television - it can be done in the theater or
on the stage is wrong. I say that my particular affinity for the medium is to
make it an electronic one and to use this particular medium for its own
intrinsic value and approach. But I don't put it above-nor do I put it
below-other forms of comedy. This happens to be mine.
~Ernie Kovacs, in "Interview with Ernie Kovacs"
"The Lively Arts" CBC-TV (Canada) airdate
10-31-61
interviewer is Bill Bellman
http://users.rcn.com/manaben/Kovacs/CBC.html
***
The
First Nations House of Learning Long House at UBC (Larry McFarland Architects
Ltd.) opened. This $4.57 million development, much influenced by the
architecture of a long house, would win the Governor General’s Award in 1994.
Wrote Harold Kalman: “Well-established West Coast materials—cedar and glass—are
extensively used, including the use of very large dressed logs. A waterfall
screens a retaining wall facing the West Mall. Built near an historic
arboretum, it provides a focus for the activities of various native Indian
programs. Users include First Nations House, First Nations Law, First Nations
Library, First Nations Health Care and NITEP (see separate listing). Major
donors were William and June Bellman, Jack Bell and James and Ilse Wallace.”