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From one expatriate to another: Richler interviews Roy Thomson

When Mordecai Richler left Canada for Paris, he was a brooding young intellectual with lots to say. He returned a prolific, respected writer with a keen eye for the absurd and the magnetism to charm or anger just about all of his contemporaries. From Montreal's Jewish ghetto to Quebec nationalism to boring Anglophones to hypocritical politicians – the incomparable Richler commented, questioned, laughed and angered.

Roy Thomson prefers to be called Lord Thomson of Fleet, if you please. He feels it gives him a little more panache, which to some Canadians back home is emblematic of those proverbial britches being a tad too small. Another Canadian expatriate living in London, novelist Mordecai Richler is also making a name for himself as a journalist. In this This Hour Has Seven Days clip, Richler interviews Thomson about the nature of his media empire and the burden of success.

The audience back in Toronto laughs at Thomson's cheeky jokes but Richler skillfully moves the interview along, coaxing out quiet admissions of affection and genuine assertions of bold ambition. Richler has turned to journalism as something of an escape from the novelist's life in order to recharge himself creatively and interview fascinating "real people" outside his circle of friends in the arts community. He also understands the joys and sorrows of being a foreigner and an expatriate, saying in a 1969 CBC Radio interview, "you carry your country with you, it's part of your baggage."
• Over the course of his career, Richler wrote for many publications including the Montrealer, New Liberty, Tamarack Review, Weekend, the Star Weekly, Show, Signature, Modern Occasions, New American Review, Inside Sports, Holiday, Life, Town, Books and Bookmen, Twentieth Century, Encouter, London Life, the London Spectator, Playboy, Maclean's, The Nation and the National Post.

• In 1998, Richler published a collection of his articles in a book titled Belling the Cat. The articles ranged in subject from travel to sports to arts and to politics.
• Richler was also a successful screenwriter and penned the screenplays for Life at the Top, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Fun with Dick and Jane and Joshua Then and Now.

• "Fundamentally, I still think of it as a street corner deal. You know in the absence of a continuing Guggenheim when you're hung up for money, that's the place to go." - Mordecai Richler on screenwriting in conversation with Robert Fulford, CBC Radio, 1968.
• Richler was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Writing in 1963 and the Senior Arts Council Fellowship in 1966.
Medium: Television
Program: This Hour has Seven Days
Broadcast Date: Nov. 21, 1965
Guest(s): Lord Thomson
Reporter: Mordecai Richler
Duration: 10:33

Last updated: October 29, 2012

Page consulted on March 22, 2013

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