Max Ferguson’s 17 years as ‘the old cowpoke’ raised MPs’ hackles and earned him fans.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
As the young Max Ferguson discovered in 1946, the life of a CBC staff announcer was about as far from the legendary glamour and excitement of a showbiz career as one could get and still call himself a broadcaster. Recently hired as a junior announcer under the formidable gaze of the head of the CBC's Maritime Region, ex-Royal Canadian Navy Commander W.E.S. Briggs, Mr. Ferguson's primary duty was to stand (well, sit) at his post in a tiny audio booth known as Studio C for his daily shift, waiting to cut into the on-air network feed every 15 or 30 minutes with "This is CBH, Halifax."
Cdr. Briggs, known colloquially as "The Old Man," ran a tight ship, replete with regular inspections and firmly enforced regulations, including one that dealt specifically with announcers leaving their assigned duty posts during a shift – a crime for which Mr. Ferguson was frequently cited.
As he related in his 1967 autobiography And Now … Here's Max, things came to a head during the network feed of a Toronto-based dramatization of The Count of Monte Cristo. Mr. Ferguson had been on booth duty for about four hours when, longing for the sound of a human voice, he opened the studio door and started heading down the long corridor that led to the outer offices.
He'd only gone a few steps when the door at the far end of the corridor suddenly opened and "There was Briggs, advancing like a dreadnought straight for me." Mr. Ferguson tactfully retreated back to the booth, his eyes fixed on the tiny peephole window that was standard equipment on all CBC studio doors.
"Sure enough, in a matter of moments, a large, disembodied, cyclopic eye appeared at the little window, glared at me accusingly for a few seconds, then vanished."
Mr. Ferguson, still flush with adrenalin from his narrow escape, was seized with a sudden impulse to jump up and enact his own version of Monte Cristo – pounding with clenched fists on the studio door, yelling in full-blown Barrymore style, "Let me out! Must I be shut up here forever? Must I never see the sky again?" After a minute or so the door cracked open just wide enough for a hand to reach in and drop a crust of stale bread on the floor. Curious as to which of his fellow wretches had responded to his histrionics, Mr. Ferguson was surprised to learn from the operator on the other side of the studio glass that his benefactor had been Cdr. Briggs himself.
Max Ferguson was, in the words of veteran broadcaster Michael Enright, "the CBC's first major radio star." His innate ability to charm audiences and bosses alike with his honesty, wit and caustic yet gentle outlook on life were the hallmarks of his long and storied CBC career – a tour of duty that would last 52 years and include stints as the initially reluctant host (and sizable cast) of Rawhide and The Max Ferguson Show, along with numerous television series, books, films and other projects.
As his daughter Nancy said, "He had the focused intent, however easygoing he sounded, to help each Canadian listener start their day smiling, laughing, and maybe a little more aware. He would have been a wonderful teacher."
Max Ferguson was born in Britain on Feb. 10, 1924 and died in Cobourg, Ont. on March 7. The family came to Canada when he was 3. He was raised in London, Ont., where he did indeed set out to become a teacher, though destiny had other plans. After graduating from the University of Western Ontario in 1946, he was offered a job at local radio station CFPL, beginning his broadcasting career at the stately salary of $25 a week.
He was soon lured to join the CBC as a junior announcer at its Halifax affiliate, Radio CBH. There he would receive the assignment that would change his life, though his initial reaction was to figure out a way to short-circuit the dreaded task.
As he settled into his regular duties at CBH, Mr. Ferguson took his turn at the various assignments – newscaster, record-show host, farm-broadcast announcer, even sound effects man on the Sunday morning program Harmony Harbour – a task requiring him to drop the needle on a record of surf and seagull effects at the appropriate moments.
At the end of his second week, he checked the duty roster to find, to his horror, that he'd been assigned to host a daily program of what was then termed "cowboy music," After Breakfast Breakdown. No fan of the genre, he also knew there was no escaping the mandatory assignment, so at the last possible moment he decided to perform it anonymously. In an ad lib born of desperation as the seconds counted down to his first live broadcast, he thrust out his jaw, clamped his back teeth together, dropped his voice to its lowest register and drawled into the open mic, "Well howdy and welcome to After Breakfast Breakdown. This is your old pal, Rawhide."
As he told the story in his 1967 autobiography And Now… Here's Max, "I then proceeded for the next half-hour to introduce each cowboy record in the most insulting fashion I could devise, popping in at the close of each song to thank the artist and bid him farewell as he 'moseyed off down the canyon, headin' tall in the saddle into the flaming sunset, whose glare would no doubt prevent him from seeing in time that 400-foot sheer drop into the chasm below waiting to claim him for that great Studio in the Sky. … and not a moment too soon.'"
Far from serving as his one and only foray into the genre he reviled, Rawhide was an instant hit with audiences and brass alike. The caustic old curmudgeon Mr. Ferguson had made up on the spur of the moment (along with the many co-stars he invented, wrote for and voiced in a daily deluge of skits mocking current events: CBC announcer Marvin Mellowbell, The Goomer Brothers, the always-adventurous Granny, and Little Harold – a black-widow spider) would run for 17 years.
Fortunately, the program's popularity soon enabled him to move beyond the "cowboy music" he found so limiting, introducing his listeners to wonderfully eccentric novelty tunes, folk music and oddities both regional and international. This made him a pioneer in what would later be termed "world music" long before the genre existed.
The initial success of Rawhide presented an interesting problem for management, which was starting to receive numerous requests for autographed photos of "the old cowhand." Given that Max Ferguson, all of 22 years old, was neither, the problem was solved with a composite photograph showing the genial host surrounded by several of his characters (all, of course, played by a heavily made-up Max) – a shot masterfully crafted years before the existence of Photoshop. Some 9,000 copies were signed and sent out before he was offered an opportunity to move the show (and his career) down the road to the CBC's flagship station in Toronto, and a national audience.
In 1949, Max Ferguson arrived at the CBC's Toronto headquarters, then located in an aging and dilapidated former girl's school on Jarvis Street. A national audience brought instant acclaim along with new – and national – problems. These included the objections of more than a few listeners, disgusted upon tuning in for their daily dose of military parade music on the morning show Musical March Past, only to be regaled by the overdubbed guitar stylings of Les Paul's Clarinet Polka, Rawhide's peppy theme song.
The reactions to Rawhide, both pro and con, poured in, even from the highest levels. On his second day in Toronto, Mr. Ferguson was amazed to see the newsroom teletypes hammering away with reports that Rawhide had been denounced on the floor of the House of Commons by a Toronto MP, who rose to ask the speaker if he was "aware of this program of meaningless ravings and tripe, disguised in the poorest possible English and an insult to the intelligence of thinking Canadians."
As Mr. Ferguson later wrote, "I was completely stunned – unable even to appreciate the wonderful irony of MPs being disturbed by poor English." It was only when he received a phone call from the grand old dean of CBC announcers, Lorne Greene himself, congratulating the young broadcaster on garnering so much free publicity, that he began to relax into his role as CBC's newly minted morning gadfly.
Rawhide was officially becoming a national treasure, but there remained one outstanding issue: The show ran live at 8:30 every morning, though technically, Mr. Ferguson's shift didn't begin until 9. In other words, he was writing and creating Rawhide (and its huge, unwieldy cast) for fun and for free, before racing to put in the full daily shift expected in return for his starting salary of $1,900 a year. As he wrote in 1967, the many gifts of food and knit goods sent in by loyal fans were welcome indeed.
In 1954, shortly after the show had been moved from mornings to a more popular evening slot, Mr. Ferguson faced an unexpected crisis – a corporate salary ceiling that prevented him, as the junior and lowest-paid announcer on the network's Toronto staff, from receiving the minimal raise he expected. After eight years of writing and performing his daily mélange of music and sketch comedy, along with other on-air duties, he was informed that he'd reached the top of his category.
Having already put in a full day's work, Mr. Ferguson chose to express his displeasure by forgoing that evening's Rawhide performance. Chaos ensued, resulting in a summons before the head of the Trans-Canada Network, Harry J. Boyle.
Fortunately, Mr. Boyle, a clever and creative former producer himself (as well as a future head of the CRTC), was a wise and avuncular boss. Instead of firing Mr. Ferguson, he proposed an innovative solution: The CBC would purchase the Rawhide program from its creator at four times his announcer's salary, and allow it to be produced from any regional centre Mr. Ferguson selected.
Having fallen in love with the Maritimes during his years there, he immediately moved the show, and his rapidly growing family, back to Halifax.
In 1962, after nearly 17 years as the "old cowpoke," Max Ferguson permanently retired Rawhide and his stable of characters, resurfacing shortly thereafter with The Max Ferguson Show, a daily blend of music, chat and topical comedy.
Once again he wrote the scripts and played all the characters live on air, aided by his uncanny ability to impersonate the popular celebrities and politicians of the day.
The Max Ferguson Show also established the long-running on-air partnership between the host and his mellifluous if somewhat madcap announcer, the equally legendary Allan McFee. The show ran for nearly 10 years, its final episode featuring appearances by Pierre Trudeau, Robert Stanfield and John Diefenbaker (all voiced by Mr. Ferguson), expressing relief that they would no longer have to serve radio duty.
After a brief hiatus, The Max Ferguson Show returned in a Sunday morning version. Gone were the skits and characters; this was just Max – his wit, his warmth, his always brilliant takes on the topics of the day, and his uniquely eccentric taste in comedy and music, much of it excavated from his never-revealed "secret source."
(David Lennick, this writer's brother, who introduced many of Mr. Ferguson's classic sketches to a new generation on his own CBC series, Night Camp, advises that Max finally revealed to him that his "secret source" included the deepest, most obscure corners of the store belonging to his friend Sam Sniderman, better known to Torontonians as Sam the Record Man.)
The weekly iteration of The Max Ferguson Show would run for more than 25 years, with Alan McFee at Max's side for most of it. Throughout his career, Mr. Ferguson was also a regular presence on CBC television, co-hosting programs such as the nightly Halifax series Gazette and the Toronto news and interview show Tabloid.
He narrated numerous films and documentaries, and extra-alert listeners could even hear him providing the voice of The Incredible Hulk for the television series The Marvel Super Heroes (with his CBC colleague Paul "Spider-Man" Soles voicing Bruce Banner.)
Max Ferguson retired from broadcasting in 1998 to write, spend more time with his family, and gaze out at the Atlantic from the window of his Cape Breton cottage. In a fitting bracket to the anonymity of his old Rawhide character, he made it a point to respond personally to every listener who wrote during his retirement years.
Over the course of his career, he received many awards, including the 1968 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, the John Drainie Award and the Gordon Sinclair Award. He was appointed an Officer of The Order of Canada in 1970, and was recipient of the Governor-General's Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement in 2001.
Max Ferguson died of a heart attack on March 7, surrounded by his wife of 35 years, the former CBC producer Pauline Janitch (his first wife, Norma Fraser Ferguson, died in 2008), and his children Scott, Nancy, Anne, Nonie, Bill and Tony. According to Nancy, her dad, knowing that his time was near, looked up at his family and said, "And so ends our broadcast for the day."
They were his final words.