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CBC pioneer Norman Campbell on his career

Broadcast Date: March 2, 1982

In this 1982 clip from CBC Radio's Variety Tonight, host Vicki Gabereau chats with CBC Television pioneer Norman Campbell and his wife Elaine. Campbell does his "famous" bird impression for Gabereau, but his wife just laughs: "His bird impressions didn't impress me!" What did attract her when they first met was Norman's "zest for life and his love of music, of course, which I have always adored."

In this interview, Campbell — who worked in many genres throughout his career but was well known for his work on musical projects — goes on to discuss his early years as a weatherman on Sable Island, "many moons ago." That was where he first became interested in musical theatre after hearing it on the radio. "It was out on Sable Island that I felt there was more to life than wild horses and shipwrecks," he says.

CBC pioneer Norman Campbell on his career

• Norman Campbell was born in Los Angeles in 1924.

• He grew up in Vancouver, and first joined CBC Radio there as a director of variety programs in 1948.

• He moved to Toronto in 1952 to work with CBC Television as it was preparing to launch its first TV broadcasts. He became a television producer/director, and his relationship with CBC Television spanned four decades. He produced and directed hundreds of television programs between the 1950s and 1990s.

• In Cue the Elephant: Backstage Tales at the CBC — a book written by veteran CBC broadcaster Knowlton Nash — Campbell remembers the CBC rehearsal halls in the early days as being alive with music, laughter and dancing: "A walk past the halls was like a stroll down Tin Pan Alley or down the streets of a film studio like MGM… You'd hear opera in one hall, jazz in another, and a poorly tuned piano plunking out pop music for the dancers of variety shows in yet another hall."

• Campbell is considered a television trailblazer, producing and directing a number of "firsts" for the CBC. These included: the very first TV show the CBC broadcast in 1952 (a 15-minute program called Let's See), the first ballet on Canadian television, and the first original Canadian musical for television, called Sunshine Town (1954).

• Although Campbell worked in many genres, his specialties were comedy, musicals and performing arts.

• Campbell was the co-creator (with Don Harron) of the highly successful Anne of Green Gables: the Musical. They had first produced this for CBC Television in 1956 and then turned it into a stage musical for the Charlottetown Festival in 1965, where it has continued to be performed year after year. For the theatre version, Campbell's wife Elaine (along with Mavor Moore) wrote the lyrics for many of the songs.

• Campbell won international Emmy Awards for two of the television ballets he produced: Cinderella (aired in 1968) and Sleeping Beauty (1972).

• Although he always returned to Canada, Campbell's talent brought him a lot of success in the United States. During the 1970s, for example, he directed episodes of such popular American sitcoms such as All in the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

• Campbell was named a member of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1975.

• He received the Order of Canada in 1979, in recognition of his continuing contribution to the arts in Canada.

• Campbell suffered from a stroke in the winter of 2004 and passed away on April 12, 2004.

CBC pioneer Norman Campbell on his career

Medium: Radio

Program: Variety Tonight

Broadcast Date: March 2, 1982

Guest(s): Norman Campbell, Elaine Campbell

Host: Vicki Gabereau

Duration: 2:31

Last updated:
March 18, 2008