Peter Gzowski

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CBC promotional image of Peter Gzowski, circa 2000
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CBC promotional image of Peter Gzowski, circa 2000

Peter Gzowski, CC , LL.D , D.Litt (July 13, 1934 - January 24, 2002) was a Canadian broadcaster, writer and reporter, most famous for his work on the CBC radio show Morningside. He wrote books, hosted television shows, and worked at a number of newspapers and at Maclean's Magazine. It is estimated that he conducted 27,000 interviews as host of Morningside. Gzowski was known for a friendly but somewhat gruff at times interviewing style. His guffaws were famous.

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[edit] Biography

A great-great-great grandson of Sir Casimir Gzowski, a famous engineer, Gzowski was born in Toronto and moved to Galt (now Cambridge) when he was six. At the age of fourteen, he ran away from home and found his paternal grandfather, who got him admitted to Ridley College in St. Catharines.

Gzowski attended the University of Toronto but never graduated. He was later awarded 11 honorary degrees. While in school he edited the student newspaper The Varsity. After university, Gzowski was employed at the Timmins local newspaper. In the spring of 1957, Gzowski became city editor of The Moose Jaw Times-Herald in Saskatchewan. The next year he joined the staff of Maclean's magazine. When he was 28 he became the youngest-ever managing editor of Maclean's.

He turned to radio in the early 1971, hosting the CBC's This Country in the Morning, and later Morningside.

From 1976 to 1978 he hosted the television show 90 Minutes Live on CBC Television, but returned to radio in 1982.

Gzowski, who had long been a heavy smoker, died of emphysema in Toronto, aged 67. In the months prior to his death he recanted. He had always defended his smoking by saying that the taxes on his cigarettes would more than cover any increased health costs his smoking would cause.

But, in his final months he openly acknowledged that he was wrong, and that his recent health care expenses dwarfed the taxes he had paid.

Gzowski was divorced from his first wife, Jennie, with whom he had five children (Mick, John, Peter, Maria and Alison). He was survived also by life partner, Gillian Howard.

[edit] Honours

[edit] Books

[edit] By Peter Gzowski

  • The Sacrament: a true story of survival
  • A Peter Gzowski Reader
  • Game of Our Lives
  • Morningside Papers
  • New Morningside Papers
  • Fourth Morningside Papers
  • Fifth Morningside Papers
  • Latest Morningside Papers
  • The Morningside Years
  • Cabin at Singing River: Building a Home in the Wilderness with Chris Czajkowski
  • Friends, Moments, Countryside
  • The Private Voice, A Journal of Reflections
  • Peter Gzowski's Spring Tonic
  • Peter Gzowski's book about This Country in the Morning
  • The Great Canadian Literary Cookbook with Kim Lafave
  • Total Gretzky: The Magic, the Legend, the Numbers
  • Unbroken Line
  • Celebration of Peter Gzowski
  • The afterword for New Canadian Library edition of The Incomparable Atuk by Mordecai Richler

[edit] About Peter Gzowski

  • Peter Gzowski: an electric life by Marco Adria
  • Remembering Peter Gzowski: A Book of Tributes by Edna Barker and Shelagh Rogers
  • Aleksandra Ziolkowska "Dreams and Reality", Toronto 1984,
  • Aleksandr Ziółkowska "Kanada, Kanada..." Warszawa 1986

[edit] External links

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