Remember ME - You Me and Dementia

October 28, 2007

CANADA: Senior Star - Talented Singers From Across Canada Compete

Not Too Old To Make You Quiver:
Winner Hazel Proctor of Calgary
Photos: Peter Redman, National Post

TORONTO, Ontario (National Post), October 27, 2007:

Hazel Proctor travelled from Calgary to Toronto last week for a singing competition at the Fairmont Royal York hotel, and selected her best outfit for the showdown: a long black skirt, a glittery, red, gold and green blouse that only Patti LaBelle could pull off (until now) and chunky heels.

All kosher there. But upon closer inspection, something seemed strange. Beneath the gauzy fabric that threatened to tear at the slightest touch laid the unmistakable shape of an invisible bra strap -- the saucy kind a Victoria's Secret model might wear. But Ms. Proctor, you see, is a senior citizen and has been for a very long time, though she won't reveal how long.

You'd be mistaken if you still believe seniors are fossilized fuddy-duddies who sit knitting in rocking chairs all day. On her Web site, candid 77-year-old sex therapist Sue Johanson has a section devoted to the much-older set. Here's her prurient advice on wrangling beneath the sheets: "Stroking, petting, whispering sweet nothings, the intimacy, the flirting and the fun are important and satisfying whether you're 21 or 71."

Aside from getting it on, seniors eat trendy food, enjoy fine wine, watch controversial movies, join book clubs, surf the Internet. In short, they're just like you and me --but with liver spots.

And though bones may eventually weaken, talent doesn't. So proved Senior Star, a Canadian Idol-style event, complete with the same band that performed on the television show and celebrity judges such as Dan Clancy from '70s CanCon rockers Lighthouse; jazz singer Tim Louis; and Gordie Tapp of Hee Haw fame.

The competition was open only to those over 65 and was hosted by Chartwell, which operates 268 seniors' residences with a total of 37,456 condo-style apartments across North America, making it the largest owner/operator in Canada and third largest in North America.

Instead of the outdated nursing homes that have a pall of misery about them -- as though the grim reaper might materialize at any second -- Chartwell's suites are intended for more excitable spirits. These units, some with kitchenettes, mean Grandma can still bake apple crumble, should she wish.

"Chartwell is doing a wonderful thing," says Mr. Tapp, a swashbuckler in cummerbund, bow tie and velvet jacket. "It's exciting. They had 600 people enter in the beginning. We heard 57 and then had to bring it down to 10. It was awfully close."

Mr. Tapp has a quick wit that belies his 85 years. He had this to say after contestant Robert Holden's performance: "You were an entire pleasure. You were so relaxed, you were like a plate of spaghetti." To Dorothy Auld from Hamilton, who trilled Somewhere Over the Rainbow: "What a beautiful blouse. You lived up to it."

Dressed in finery and with group-ies (admittedly, mostly grandkids and sons and daughters), waving handmade signs, some of the seniors -- like Phyllis Styles from Mississauga, who did a restrained rendition of Nat King Cole's Stardust -- made my bottom lip quiver.

But let's rewind to the beginning of the night.

Tadaaki Nishizawa, 77, from Vancouver, was up first. In a fedora that lent him a touch of the private-eye mystique, he tucked himself behind the piano and away he tinkled. Besame Mucho was sung gently and gutturally. I felt transported to a seaside Acapulco cafe, and I do believe it marked the first time I had been wooed by a geriatric.

Then it was Frank Rodgers's turn, 67 with cotton-white hair. Despite recent throat surgery, he gave us Paul Anka's My Way, his way. (He ended up second runner-up; first runner-up was clarinetist Leonard Blomfeldt from Kamloops.)

"My Way is his favourite," says Mr. Rodgers's wife, Pauline, during intermission. "It was his closing song for 16 years when he had his band, the Coincidentals."

"I'm so proud of my dad. I thought he played really well," adds his daughter, Jo-Anne Charette, while her daughter, Olivia, 13, giggled, saying she would rather be a figure skater, since "she didn't have the voice her grandfather did."

The youngest in a family of 12, Mr. Rodgers has spent a lifetime performing, during the days when radio was it.

"You sat and listened and learned all the songs. My sisters would learn the Andrews Sisters songs," says Mr. Rodgers. "They had beautiful voices and great harmony and I learned to sing with them and eventually I wound up in the St. Joseph's church choir in Halifax, so music has always been part of my life."

It's been part of Ms. Proctor's, too. The night's ultimate winner, Ms. Proctor, who still performs at jazz festivals and events (this Remembrance Day she's performing in Calgary), won for her sassy take of Miss Celie's Blues (Sister), the Quincy Jones tune from The Color Purple.

"That was an electric performance," said Mr. Clancy to Ms. Proctor, when she finished. "You were working it, girl," added Mr. Louis.

And that she was: Shimmying and strutting, her bright blouse twinkling under the lights. When she charged: "So, Sister, I'm keepin' my eyes on you," the audience was keeping its eyes on her.

Mississauga's Phyllis Styles

"Doesn't that switch your image of what our seniors are?" asks Ms. Proctor's daughter, Karon Wudkevich. "After watching these performances, when you think of seniors, now you think of awesome, vibrant people."

Seniors don't even want to be thought of as seniors. When Ms. Proctor heard Chartwell was looking for a senior star, she balked. " 'Hazel, do it,' they said. They pushed me into it," says Ms. Proctor, who cites Ella Fitzgerald and her own cousin, Eleanor, as influences.

"Unfortunately, the music scene is kinda shut down to live music. I think it's pretty well over, and my musicians say the same thing," says Ms. Proctor.

Taking part in a Canadian Idol-like contest, seniors sang their hearts out and played instruments. Robert Stefani of Burlington.

Today's music doesn't impress Mr. Rodgers either: "You can't understand the words. There's no story. There's no beginning or middle or end-- there's just randomness."

But he's happy Canadian Idol forces contestants to sing classics. "They're made to run their voices through scales, rather than be monotone, so there's hope good music will return."

As it happens, for one night it did. When Burlington's Bob Stefani threw his head back and shut his eyes during the chorus of Gershwin's They Can't Take that Away from Me in the Imperial Room, it seemed like we were part of some bygone era: We felt younger, more hopeful, hardier, better.

By Iris Benaroia
© National Post 2007