By the 1960s, with the success of Honest Ed's assured, Mr. Mirvish began looking for new ventures. He toyed with the idea of buying the Victory Burlesque Theatre (an old vaudeville house on Spadina Avenue that had been turned into a strip house) and transforming it into a legitimate theatre. Experts advised him that the Royal Alexandra, on nearby King Street, would be a much better investment if it ever came on the market. The Royal Alex, which was built by Cawthra Mulock, scion of two Family Compact families, in 1907 for a cost of $750,000, went on sale in 1962 at less than a third of that figure. The building was distinguished both architecturally and theatrically. Among the greats who had appeared on its stage were Orson Welles, Paul Robeson, the Marx Brothers, Katharine Cornell, Jessica Tandy, Sir John Gielgud, Raymond Massey, Mary Pickford and Hume Cronyn.
Egged on by his wife and his son -- "Anne and David had always loved the theatre. And I had always loved bargains," he said later -- Mr. Mirvish acquired it for $200,000 cash and the promise not to raze the building. He was to run it as a legitimate theatre for at least the next five years; after that, he could convert the building and property to another use if the theatre couldn't sustain itself.
Instead, he spent twice the purchase price renovating the theatre, replacing the original tea room with a bar, furnishing the lobby with his own Louis XV furniture, hanging framed photographs of famous performers who had appeared in the theatre in the lobbies and staircases and mounting a marquee sign outside with 1,362 flashing light bulbs. Audiences and critics raved about the reopening on Sept. 9, 1963, even though they panned the premiere production of Never Too Late, starring William Bendix.
Two decades later, he bought the Old Vic Theatre in London. Although he'd never been in one of England's most famous theatres - he had never even been to London - Mr. Mirvish had heard tales of the Old Vic from touring actors including Sir Ralph Richardson, Sir John Gielgud and Peter O'Toole. In June of 1982, he heard that the Old Vic was up for sale and that impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber had offered £500,000. He learned, too, that director Trevor Nunn was pledging a similar figure. Thinking Mr. Webber was bluffing, Mr. Mirvish put in a bid for £550,000 pounds and was stunned to learn it was the winning bid. "For a guy who considered himself pretty shrewd with a deal, I'd overbid them by about a hundred thousand bucks," he complained later. Still, when Mr. Lloyd Webber offered to take the theatre off his hands for £600,000, Mr. Mirvish said no, and refused again when the British impresario asked if he could come in as partner.
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There was a big fuss in England about a foreigner buying up a national treasure. Mr. Mirvish flew to London and held a press conference to defuse fears that he might be intending to move the Old Vic to Toronto, the way London Bridge had been transplanted to Arizona. On the contrary, he said - he wanted to restore it the way he had refurbished the Royal Alex. He finally won over the hostile media when he declared, "They're calling me a foreigner. But I'm really just a lad from the colonies." The Queen rewarded him with a CBE, making him a Commander of the British Empire, a gong that Mr. Mirvish, typically, translated into "Creator of Bargains Everywhere."
He said he spent almost $4-million upgrading and sprucing up the aging theatre to its high Victorian splendour. At the re-opening on Oct. 31, 1983, he personally welcomed Her Majesty the Queen Mother, the Old Vic's patron, to the theatre and escorted her to her seat. There were rumours that he had greeted her by saying "Hi, I'm Honest Ed," but he denied it. Although he didn't know it at the time, a building across the street called The Old Vic Annexe was part of the deal. After letting The National Theatre use it as a rehearsal space for more than 15 years, he sold it in 1998 for close to $3-million. Even though The Old Vic was celebrated for winning awards, the Mirvishes could never make it break even and in August, 1997, they put it up for sale. The deal -- for an undisclosed price to The Old Vic Theatre Trust -- was concluded in September, 1998.
His next and final foray into theatre-building was to turn the parking lot next to the Royal Alex into a new venue named The Princess of Wales. He'd had the idea for building a temporary theatre in the parking lot to accommodate Miss Saigon, when it finished its West End run in London.
When he learned that it would cost $10-million just to mount Miss Saigon, he consulted with his son David and they decided to go for broke, once again, and build a new theatre.
"I had the feeling that the fastest growing trend in theatre was bigness!" he wrote in his autobiography. "Shows like Cats, Les Miz and Phantom of the Opera were also breaking records. The top stage producers of the nineties were selling vastly expensive yet hugely visual presentations which the public was buying like mad."
The Mirvishes built a state-of-the-art facility with a huge stage and 2,000 seats. The theatre cost $50-million ($23-million in construction costs, $20-million for the value of the land and $7-million in additional parking). It was the first privately built theatre in Toronto since the Royal Alex in 1907.
Staging Miss Saigon cost another $12-million. They requested and received permission to name the theatre after Diana, Princess of Wales, who acquiesced in a letter in which she wrote, "I am delighted to be associated with a project which, I am confident, will be of great importance to the City of Toronto, a city of which I have many fond memories."
The official opening was May 14, 1993, 10 years after the restoration of the Old Vic and 30 years since the reopening of the Royal Alex. Les Miz ran at Royal Alex for 15 months after its 1989 opening and another 16 months in two subsequent productions, then for 22 months in four separate national tours for a total run of 4½ years in Canada, before a combined audience of six million people.
