On Christmas day of 1931, Al was born in a CN Caboose in Hague Saskatchewan. A bitterly cold December, his mother Edith (ambitiously named after Queen Edith Godwin's daughter), had come up from Saskatoon with a Christmas dinner to join his father Cliff, who was an engineer, stranded for the holiday at the Hague yard because the train tanks had frozen. The visit became the legend when, three weeks early, Edith went into labour. The local Mennonite midwife was urgently fetched from her Christmas dinner and Al arrived in time for his favourite meal, dessert.
For Al it was the beginning of a life of hard work and constant moving with his parents and eventually with his beloved younger brother Don. Children of the depression, Al and Don traded coal for vegetables over the railway fences, sold apples to soldiers during the war, and were the kingpins of their Annapolis valley paper route while their father served at RAF Greenwood. Every penny was saved for the movies and every weekend Al and Don spent as much time in the theater as their earnings would allow. Al became an excellent dramaturge at a young age, training Don (the cute one) to cry at the tram stop, claiming to have lost his fare to get home. When they had collected enough donations from kindly strangers it was back to the theater with pockets full of candy corn. Al's first true loves were Ingrid Bergman and Jazz.
Ever the class clown, Al spent a good deal of time in detention: drama and track and field were the only things that kept him in school. It was inevitable that he would become a comedian, eventually working night clubs in Windsor, Detroit, and Chicago he opened for folks like Lena Horne and Tony Bennett. He worked on USO in Viet Nam and the Philippines, and he toured for years with singer Al Martino. As the great nightclub era drew to a close, Al's career shifted to film and TV commercial work in Toronto, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. (His IMDb page has more details.) Eventually, he began teaching film history and acting, working for years at public and private colleges in Detroit and Orlando. In his final years he even taught acting classes at the Persephone Theater in Saskatoon. He was a staunch union supporter, served for years on the Florida Motion Picture and Television Association and was long-time member of the Screen Actors Guild where he served nine years as Detroit Branch President, three years on the Hollywood Board and the last eighteen years as a trustee to the SAG Pension and Health Plans out of Burbank, California.
Al lived an amazing and full life. He travelled all over the world, including to the Antarctic with his brother Don (Laruel), whose death in 2001 never ceased to cause him grief. He was a great admirer of women, and he was lucky enough to have married two of the most striking ones (not at the same time) of his acquaintance. Although none of his children and grandchildren will miss his "Vogon poetry," he will be profoundly missed by each and every one of us who knew and loved him and whose lives he touched with his good humour and unedited opinions of politicians. He built some damn fine tree-houses, loved to camp as long as it was in a tent trailer with a beer fridge, and ate thousands of litres of ice cream and cookies annually. Al was a generous and funny dad and grandpa, a profoundly loyal friend, and a true free spirit the likes of which are seldom seen.
Al is survived by his first beautiful wife Lyla Wright, and children Sharon Wright (Frank), Robert Hubbs (Brenda), grandchildren Jess, Isaac, Ahren and by the children of his second beautiful wife Vernell (sadly d. 2023) Vanessa Slattery, Heather Shaffer (Rick) and grandchildren Kodi, Baylee Rose, Jesse, and Phebe, and great grand-child Hartley. His family thank is medical team, Dr. Ali Rajput, Dr. Teal, the amazing nurses at Royal University Hospital and St. Paul's, the equally amazing and kind caregivers at Whispering Flowers and Central Haven. The family will be remembering him privately. Should anyone wish to make a donation in his honour, please support your local theater groups.
Arrangements entrusted to Derryl Hildebrandt.
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