Jan Rubes, CBC radio star, first TV telecast, dies
Dan Say
Opera singer and actor Jan Rubes dies at 89
Last Updated: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 | 9:57 PM ET
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CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2009/06/30/jan-rubes-obit.html
Jan Rubes, the Czech-born artist who had a career in Canada as an opera
singer, actor and broadcaster, has died, his family announced Tuesday. He was
89.
No cause of death was released.
Rubes was a founding member of the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto,
performing for the company more than 1,000 times between 1949 and 1989.
He also took part in the very first CBC telecast with Glenn Gould in 1953.
He came to wider renown as host of the weekly CBC radio show The Songs of My
People and later had a career as an actor, starring in the film Witness.
Rubes was born in Volyne, Czechoslovakia, on June 6, 1920. He made his opera
debut in 1940 in Prague, as Basilio in The Barber of Seville and became a
leading singer with the Prague Opera.
A bass singer, he represented Czechoslovakia at the International Music
Festival at Geneva in 1948 and was a first-prize winner.
In 1948, Rubes emigrated to Canada and began to sing with the Royal
Conservatory Opera and the CBC Opera.
He was an original member of the Opera Festival Company of Toronto, which
later became the COC.
His repertoire included roles in six languages, including Mephisto in Faust,
Bluebeard in Bluebeard's Castle, Boris in Boris Godunov, Daland in The Flying
Dutchman and Figaro and Bartolo in The Marriage of Figaro.
In the 1960s, Rubes began appearing on TV shows and later moved into feature
films. (CBC Still Photo Collection) In the 1960s, Rubes began appearing on TV
shows and later moved into feature films. (CBC Still Photo Collection) Rubes
was also in demand as a guest soloist with orchestras across Canada and in New
York, Frankfurt and Central America.
In 1974-6, he served as the COC's touring director and he also directed COC
productions such as La Boh�me and Ariadne auf Naxos.
From 1953 to 1963, Rubes was host of CBC's Songs of My People and made two
recordings based on music he played and sang on air.
That began an interest in electronic media that led him to TV appearances on
Parade, L'Heure du concert and as host of Thursday Night and of Sunday
Afternoon at the Opera.
In the 1960s, he also began acting, appearing on TV programs such as The
Forest Rangers, King of Kensington and later, Due South.
In 1985, he landed a role as the Amish grandfather in Witness, starring
Harrison Ford.
That opened the door to feature films and over the next 20 years he appeared
in more than 40 films, including Dead of Winter, The Outside Chance of
Maximilian Glick, One Magic Christmas, Deceived and Never Too Late.
He earned a Genie Award for his role in the film Something About Love and a
Gemini for best supporting actor in TV series Two Men.
Rubes also won the Queen's Jubilee Medal in 1978, the Canadian Centennial
Medal in 1967 and the 1991 Earl Grey Award for lifetime achievement in
television.
In 1995, at the age of 75, Rubes starred in his first Broadway play, James
Lapine's Twelve Dreams at the Lincoln Theatre Centre.
He was artist-in-residence at Wilfrid Laurier University in 1981 and taught at
the University of Windsor in 1985.
Rubes was married to actress Susan Douglas, founder of Toronto's Young
People's Theatre and former head of CBC radio drama.
===================
http://www.theglobeandmail.
com/news/national/jan-rubes-brought-a-wide-range-of-talents-to-stage-screen-an
d-radio/article1202851/
Jan Rubes brought a wide range of talents to stage, screen and radio
Czech immigrant came to Canada after the Communists took over his home country
by Sandra Martin
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Tuesday, Jun. 30, 2009
10:39PM EDT
Having any kind of talent is a blessing, but Jan Rubes � opera singer, actor,
writer, director and broadcaster � had a dazzling number of spangles in his
artistic repertoire. Among them: soloist with the Canadian Opera Company;
actor and director at The Stratford Festival; host of Songs of My People , a
weekly radio show on CBC in the mid-1950s; actor on television and film,
including playing the Amish grandfather in Witness with Harrison Ford, and
scores of other films and television dramas.
He also created 80 episodes of Guess What , a television show for children.
Indeed, if he hadn't come here in the late 1940s, fleeing the Communists in
his native Czechoslovakia, it is hard to imagine how our fledgling cultural
organizations would have managed without an artist of his range, skill and
experience.
Mr. Rubes died after a stroke in Toronto General Hospital on June 29. He was
89.
As for firsts, he specialized in them. Besides singing while Glenn Gould
played on CBC television in 1953, he performed on inaugural telecasts on rival
networks, CTV, TVO and CityTV.
Was he an actor who could sing, a singer who could act, or a performer who
could direct? The answer: all of the above.
Jan Ladislav Rubes was born in Volyne, Czechoslovakia, on June 6, 1920, the
younger of two sons of Jan and Ruzena (n�e Kellnetova) Rubes. Growing up
between the wars in an affluent family in a small town in southern
Czechoslovakia, he had the skill sets and the opportunities to become a
doctor, an athlete or a musician.
The Nazis made the choice for him after they took control of Czechoslovakia in
1939. He was 19, a medical student at Charles University in Prague, a champion
cross-country skier and tennis player, and a mean pianist who made extra money
playing in a dance band.
When the Germans shut down the universities, Mr. Rubes decided to audition for
the Prague Conservatory of Music. Much to his surprise he won a place, made
his debut in 1940 as Basilio in The Barber of Seville and quickly became a
leading singer in the Prague Opera.
As the war ground on, Mr. Rubes was taken, according to his wife Susan Rubes,
with a group of other Czech musicians to Dresden, where by day they lodged in
jail and by night they sang in the opera house as replacements for the German
singers who were fighting at the front.
After the Allies defeated the Germans, he was repatriated and resumed his
studies with Hilbert Vavra, graduating from the Prague Conservatory in 1946.
Fewer than two years later, there was a Communist coup in Czechoslovakia.
Coincidentally, he was selected to represent his country at the International
Music Festival in Geneva, Switzerland, that year, where he won first prize in
his category.
Following his older brother's advice � to not come back � Mr. Rubes applied
for a visa to emigrate to Canada with the help of an uncle who lived in
Toronto, and who had agreed to serve as a sponsor. After landing in Halifax,
Mr. Rubes made his way to Toronto by train and, after settling into his
uncle's home, went searching for the opera house.
Finding, to his shock, that there wasn't one, he searched out other singing
venues, performing as Betto in Gianni Schicchi with the Royal Conservatory
Opera at the University of Toronto, as a soloist on radio with the CBC Opera
and as one of the original members of the Opera Festival Company of Toronto,
which later became the nucleus of the Canadian Opera Company.
In the four decades from 1949 to 1989, Mr. Rubes, a basso, appeared in more
than 50 COC productions, including 20 national tours. Indeed, he even directed
Puccini's La Boheme , while serving as the Company's touring director for two
years in the mid-1970s.
And of course he also built an international career as a guest soloist, giving
concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York, as well as other venues in the United
States, Mexico and Europe.
When The Stratford Festival opened in the mid-1950s, Mr. Rubes was on stage
there as well, singing Collatinus in The Rape of Lucretia in 1956, Pluto in
Orpheus in the Underworld in 1959, Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro in 1964
and 1965, and Leporello in Don Giovanni , the following year. He returned to
The Festival in 1975 to direct the operas, The Fool and Ariadne auf Naxos .
His most famous collaboration, though, was with Susan Douglas Rubes, his wife
of nearly 60 years. Although born in Austria, she is a Czech who fled with her
parents to the U.S. in 1939.
She and her future husband met in Montreal in 1950 on the set of Forbidden
Journey, a United Artists film made here during the Igor Gouzenko era. Mr.
Rubes, who was imported from Toronto, played the role of a Communist spy; Ms.
Douglas, who arrived in Montreal from New York, was cast as the female love
interest.
Within a couple of days, he was smitten, although it took her until the end of
the filming to realize he was the leading man for her. They were married on
Sept. 22, 1950. Forever afterward, they affectionately referred to Forbidden
Journey , the film that had brought them together, as Was This Trip
Necessary ?
Ms. Rubes later became head of CBC radio drama, president of Family Channel,
and the founder of Young Peoples Theatre in Toronto.
In his 60s Mr. Rubes, the natural athlete, demonstrated that his athletic
prowess hadn't diminished by winning the Canadian National Senior tennis
championship. In 1991, when he was 71, he was ranked second among senior
competitive players across the country.
He leaves his wife Susan, his sons Jonathan and Tony, three grandchildren and
his extended family.
He is survived by his wife, sons Jonathan and Tony and three grandsons. He was
predeceased by his son Christopher in 1996.