"WOULD you like to see where I think?" Kay Alsop leads the way to her inner sanctum. The room is businesslike and comfortable, featuring bookcases, a computer, files, a large window and a small piano. A photo collage, in pride of place among the family photographs and portraits, is a visual record of Kay's career as a journalist.
The first story she tells is classic. Kay is assigned to interview Zsa Zsa Gabor, in town to add pizzazz to the opening of a downtown hotel.
Ms. Gabor arrived late and kicked off the interview with a question of her own.
"How old are you, dahling?" Having done her research, Kay could answer truthfully, "I believe we're about the same age."
"Impossible, you're much older. But if you fluff your hair and find a young lover,
you'll be fine."
Interview completed and deadline looming, Kay rushed back to the paper's newsroom to write the story. "There I was, whanging away, copyboys running off with the 'takes' (pages) as they came off the typewriter."
Needless to say, Kay met the deadline.
Kay's career began in her hometown of Winnipeg. She was married (to Cy Alsop for more than 60 years), raising three children, doing some modelling and working as a freelance journalist.
One day, while Kay was overseeing a fashion photo shoot at the famous intersection of Portage and Main streets, a friendly onlooker spoke up, "You're having fun, aren't you?" Her new chum turned out to be Mary Liz Bayer, host of CBC Television's Ladies First. Yes indeed, Kay was having fun. That combination of personality and professionalism led to interview assignments and ultimately to a two-year stint as the program's host.
Next came appearances as a guest panelist on Canada's iconic television series Front Page Challenge and the lesser known but equally challenging history quiz program Flashback.
Kay's television career halted when Canadian General Insurance transferred Cy and the family to Vancouver where, in 1968, West Vancouver became their home.
Kay knocked on some doors at CBC Vancouver but they did not open. "Okay, I got out my tape recorder and started doing interviews. Chief Dan George was the first," recalls Kay. Then, a lunch date opened a brand new door.
Simma Holt, like Kay a guest panelist on Front Page Challenge, was at that lunch. Holt, a veteran reporter with The Province, thought Kay should join the paper.
"'Never in a million years,' I said. I had no formal training in journalism," recalls Kay. "Simma convinced me to give it a try. She gave me my start, she was my mentor and we're friends to this day."
Kay's editor, "Pat Wallace of The Province," as the West Vancouverborn newspaperwoman was known, was another advocate. "Pat let me write what I wanted to write," says Kay, and so she did for the next 15 years.
Kay was the first woman to fly with the Canadian Forces Snowbirds. She interviewed Pierre Trudeau and Thomas Berger and walked the beat with Vancouver policeman Whistling Bernie Smith. She wrote on women's equality and issues in family law. She was the paper's fashion editor for five years until confronted by mandatory retirement in 1985.
Kay retired from The Province but not from journalism. She was scooped up by the Whistler Journal and continued working as a magazine editor and feature writer. In 1987, she received a YWCA Women of Distinction Award for Communications and Public Affairs.
Family, friends and faith are the focus of Kay's life these days. She's a great-grandmother, teaches Sunday school at First Church of Christ, Scientist West Vancouver, and studies French. Most mornings, she's off to fitness classes at the West
Vancouver community centre, when not gadding about with friends - a train trip to Whistler was their latest jaunt.
Kay is still writing. She has just completed a biography of Glenn McPherson. Chairman of Okanagan Helicopters and one of the first Whistler visionaries, in the Second World War, McPherson worked for William Stephenson, Canadian spymaster, whose code name was Intrepid.
As Kay Alsop approaches her 93rd birthday in August, she is reflective.
"I've had so much help along the way. I'm the luckiest old broad on the planet and proof that miracles can, and do, happen."
Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. Contact her at 778-279-2275 or email her at [email protected].
