Profile of Peter Gzowski on Famous Like Me

Peter Gzowski, CC , LL.D (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 became a giant on the Canadian journalism scene, known as 'Mr. Canada' to many. 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 personably friendly but somewhat gruff at times interviewing style. His guffaws were famous.

Biography

Gzowski was born in Toronto. At the age of six he moved to Galt, Ontario (now Cambridge) with his mother and step-father. In 1948, at the age of 14, he ran away from home and found his paternal grandfather, who managed to have Peter admitted to Ridley College in St. Catharines.

Gzowski was the great-grandson of Sir Casimir Gzowski, a Polish noble who was an engineer and Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.

Gzowski attended the University of Toronto but never graduated. He was later awarded 11 honorary degrees. 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 and became known as journalism's "boy wonder." He turned to radio in the early 1970s, hosting the CBC's This Country in the Morning, and later Morningside.

Gzowski, who had long been a heavy smoker, died of emphysema in Toronto. 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 an 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.

Honours

• 1974, 1985, 1987 ACTRA Awards for the best host-interviewer on radio
• 1981 National Magazine Award for his profile of Wayne Gretzky
• 1986 Officer of the Order of Canada
• 1988 honorary Doctor of Laws, Trent University
• ???? honorary Doctor of Letters, University of New Brunswick
• 1997 international Peabody Award for broadcasting
• 1998 Companion of the Order of Canada.
• 1999 appointed Chancellor of Trent University, a position that he held to his death
• 2002 the Peter Gzowski Foundation for Literacy was funded by the federal government and named in honour of Gzowski's work in promoting literacy in Canada

Books

By Peter Gzowski

• The Sacrament: a true story of survival
• The Incomparable Atuk with Mordecai Richler
• 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

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

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