Filmmaker and producer who founded Toronto Film Festival
Born: June 13, 1939;
Died: January 1, 2017
WILLIAM (Bill) Marshall, who has aged 77, was a Glasgow boy who emigrated to Canada with his family when he was 15 and went on to become a cultural giant in his adopted country, particularly in the film industry.
He was a founder of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), now one of the most-visited and most-respected film festivals in the world. When he died, he remained chairman emeritus of the TIFF and was always seen as the life-blood of what he first billed as "the festival of festivals." Unlike Cannes, it is a festival less for the industry and more for the film-going public. Close to half a million people visit it annually.
Although he became best-known for running the festival, Mr Marshall also produced 13 feature films, hundreds of documentaries and the Toronto run of the stage musical Hair. The most famous film he produced was probably Outrageous! (1977), now something of a cult classic in Canada. In 2002, for his career's work, the Queen made him a Member of the Order of Canada. He also served for a time as president of the Canadian Association of Motion Picture Producers.
William Marshall was born in Glasgow to Bill, a worker in the shipyards and on train wagons, and Josephine (née Poan) Marshall. Young Bill went to St Aloysius' (Jesuit) College on Hill Street, just off Renfrew Street in Glasgow.
During the tough post-war years, his father decided to seek a better life in the United States but his openly left-wing, pro-worker views did not sit well with the Cold War US immigration machine of the time and so he opted instead for Canada, where he, his wife, young Bill and his sister Kathleen were welcomed with open arms.
Bill Marshall Senior had been highly involved in the Citizen's Theatre in Glasgow and that rubbed off on Bill Jr. “My father thought I was on my way to becoming a perfect socialist until I started reading F Scott Fitzgerald,” Bill Marshall Jr told the Canadian magazine Maclean’s in 2000."
In Canada, he enrolled at Oshawa Central Collegiate Institute, east of Toronto, where he met and married Beverley Bennett and they went on to have three children. He later studied English at the University of Toronto.
Mr Marshall did his military service with the Queen's York Rangers, finishing with the rank of captain. After a spell in public relations with Procter & Gamble, he and a friend, Gil Taylor, set up Marshall Taylor Productions, a successful PR firm that morphed into a film production company, producing hundreds of short films and award-winning documentaries. Through a chance meeting with a neighbour, David Crombie, Mr Marshall ventured into politics, successfully leading Mr Crombie's campaign for Mayor of Toronto and remaining his chief of staff for three terms. But his heart was less in politics, more in culture and particularly the film industry.
“I was sitting in Mayor Crombie’s office one day and I was tired of listening to city councillors yammering on,” Mr Marshall recalled. So he and two movie-obsessed friends, Dutchman Henk Van der Kolk and Canadian Murray "Dusty" Cohl, decided to put their money where their mouths were and launch "the festival of festivals" in 1976. And for a while, it was their own money, their own credit cards, their own overdrafts.
Mr Marshall and Mr Cohl went to the Cannes film festival in 1975, to schmooze and push Toronto as a potential film festival site. They set up shop on the palatial terrace of the Carlton Hotel, as close to the bar as possible. The big movie movers and shakers, after a few martinis, would wander from the bar and mostly scoff at the young Canadian wannabes. But Mr Marshall was not just Canadian. He was Scottish and his charm got enough of the big distributors to say they would give him a chance.
"Most people said it was a stupid idea and that no-one would come. In fact, 35,000 people came to the first festival in 1976," Mr Marshall said. "Before this, Toronto was a very dull, black-and-white, symphony-and-opera town. We brought out the rock ’n’ roll side of Toronto.”
Mr Marshall was hugely influenced by fellow Scot and filmmaker John Grierson, originally from Deanston in Scotland, a University of Glasgow alumnus and said to have been the man who coined the term documentary for true-story short movies.
Bill Marshall, after becoming a Canadian citizen, never forgot his Scottish roots. He wore his kilt at his wedding to Sari Ruda, his fourth wife, loved the bagpipes, confused most of his closest Canadian friends by calling them all "Jimmy" and enjoyed the company of many visiting Scots including Ewan McGregor. Trainspotting was one of Mr Marshall's favourite films.
Piers Handling, current director and CEO of the TIFF, said: "Scottish – the first key to unlocking the man. Smart, stubborn, good-natured, always up for a challenge, a natural disruptor. He was an outsider who sensed, no doubt sparked by his stint in politics, that Toronto in the seventies was on the verge of a seismic demographic change. This oh-so-white city was about to become a riot of multi-ethnic variety. His vision was to create the first film event that reflects that ethnic mix. At the same time, he wanted to put the spotlight on Canada as a separate market from the United States (until that moment we had always been considered a part of the US domestic market)."
Wayne Clarkson, an early director of the TIFF, added: "The Toronto International Film Festival would not exist today were it not for a small group of outliers led by the irreverent, gregarious, charming wordsmith, marketing wizard, and film czar Mr William Marshall. It was his leadership, vision, and spirit in those formative years that made it all possible."
Bill Marshall married four times. He is survived by his children Lee, Stephen and Shelagh, all from his first marriage to Beverley Bennett, by his fourth wife Sari Ruda and his grandchildren Kaitlin, Sunny, Clara, Bridget, Reese and Jonathan.
PHIL DAVISON
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