In a world of books with almost Victorian length subtitles, this newest one on Peter Gzowski simply states: Peter Gzowski: A Biography.

For a man known to ask long and intricately tangled questions, this brief description is, in its own way, ironically appropriate.

R.B. Fleming's book is the first biography of the late, iconic Canadian broadcaster who hosted CBC Radio's This Country in the Morning in the 1970s, followed by the splendidly popular Morningside in the 1980s and '90s.

Former CBC Radio Morningside host Peter Gzowski in 1997. He died in January 2002, at 67. (Eric Wynne/Canadian Press)

It tells you all you'll ever want to know about the nitty gritty of producing a radio program or working at Maclean's magazine in the '60s, where Gzowski made his mark as a writer and editor.

Many biographers are loath to throw away any research, no matter how minute and meaningless. But Fleming does pause upon occasion amidst all the detail to offer us pockets of insight into Peter's furtive character.

I say "Peter" not in the manner of those who call everybody by their first name, even people they've never met. I was one of those producers who worked closely with him for seven seasons.

I was there when he came back to be the host of Morningside in 1982 after his short stint on TV. We had, I believed, a good professional relationship.

During all those years, I probably spoke to him, in a casual or personal manner, for all of maybe 10 minutes.

And that was fine. It was eight minutes longer than a number of other producers.

A need to retreat

I mention this because it goes to the heart of the character of Peter Gzowski and why he was so mysterious and iconic, and such a contradiction in his own — and in the country's — terms.

The late Lister Sinclair, the former host of Ideas, who used to be a regular guest on Morningside, said it best: Peter was best friends with the country, and with a very small circle of people. The rest of us had to view his intimacy at a distance.

What's more, often his friends didn't know him that well either. We find out in Fleming's biography, for example, that Gzowski fathered a child in the early 1960s with a woman he once worked with, whom he only fitfully supported, a situation that people who knew him were totally unaware of.

Fleming presents a Gzowski who was moody, gruff, brooding and competitive.

Those of us who worked with him also knew he hated dealing with brash American guests with their egos on display, like peacock tails in mating season.

For his part, Peter, the quintessential Canadian, let his own ego smoulder underneath that secretive but amiable surface.

Gzowski's competitive nature made him very good at what he did. But at times it also made him appear small-minded and ungenerous (except when he wrote his own books and showered thanks on everyone, which, of course, made him look magnanimous).

As an introvert, Peter might be forgiven for wanting to protect himself.

Introverts are fatigued by company. They need to retreat and, as Peter became even more famous, everybody wanted a piece of him.

To give his admirers what they wanted would have depleted his reserves of energy. And he wanted this energy to go into his on-air persona, his craft, and what he called (to use the magazine term he preferred) his "pieces," meaning his radio interviews.

Wayne Gretzky of the microphone

Looking back, I'd have to say they were definitely his pieces rather than mere interviews.

We producers wrote his questions, and wrote background notes and essays for him, but he made these interviews his own.

That is how we producers know a host is something special, when he (or she) can turn a series of pointed, research-generated questions into something that appears to emerge from deep within their own character.

Fleming describes Peter's interview style as similar to Wayne Gretzky's hockey playing.

Gretzky could see "hundreds of patterns," which allowed him to "predict subconsciously where he could shoot the puck."

Similarly, Fleming suggests, Peter's mind worked through "combinations and permutations," circling in on a guest, surprising and disarming them.

Along with his casual deftness, Gzowski had another disarming technique — his avuncular warmth, a manner that has largely gone out of style in today's more edgy media universe.

Somehow, Peter, with his messy appearance, could turn being an uncle into a sex symbol.

Genie in a bottle

Above all, though, Peter seemed interested in his guests. That's easy to say, and hard to fake on radio, among the most intimate of media.

As the incomparable Nicole Belanger, his first executive producer on Morningside, used to say "you could hear Peter listen," and not just recite the next question on the prepared script.

Guests were always perplexed about how marvelous Peter was on air and then, after the item was over, they would be summarily dismissed.

Of course it was a three-hour show. There was no time for sentiment and post-interview chit-chat with Peter, even if he wanted to, which usually he didn't.

Once, I had a real, first-hand peek at Gzowski's "magic." I had produced a documentary and it was my task to introduce it on air to Peter and the Morningside audience.

So, on this occasion, I walked directly into his studio-world. And I don't think he even looked up at me.

He was rumpled, as usual. But then the red studio light went on, as did the microphone. We were "on air."

That was when Peter looked up and saw me, when seconds before I had been invisible.

It was a distinct, palpable feeling of being, as Nicole would say, "listened to," understood. It was as if a comforting genie had sprung to life out of his being, conjured from his microphone.

I coughed up my opening remarks and after a couple of minutes Peter announced, "So, let's hear the documentary." Then he turned off the mic and I could almost see the genie pour itself back into its bottle. Peter looked down. It was time for the next item. Once again, I was invisible and I walked out of the studio.

Peter was one of those who was made larger and more personable by certain media, such as print and radio, but not necessarily by the busy and intrusive medium of TV.

Radio was his true comfort zone. It allowed him to be intimate in front of the whole country while remaining ever solitary.