License to Shill

Another clue that Richard Rohmer doesn’t know his Goldfinger from his elbow: a chapter in Golden Phoenix about celebrity endorsements for Peter Munk’s stereo system, the Clairtone Project G:

The star-studded cast included not only Sinatra, Peterson, Gillespie and Vaughn but an impoverished young Scotsman who was about to become James Bond and one of the highest-paid and most respected film actors of his time, Sean Connery.

Think about the logic problem that makes this statement unlikely.  Why would Clairtone want an endorsement from Sean Connery before he was famous?  “The Clairtone G: Ask the impoverished Scotsman who owns one.”  Rohmer has written himself into a corner to get the words “Sean Connery” at the end of the sentence.  Where it would mean the most in Rohmerland, attached to the information that Connery eventually made lots of money.

There is a Clairtone Project G stereo in the background of the creepy Connery misfire A Fine Madness.  It came out in 1966, after Connery had already played James Bond in Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball.  Maybe that’s what Rohmer means.

Goldfinger

I was a little surprised, in an otherwise slavering work of blind hero worship, to see that Rohmer called one of the chapters of Golden Phoenix “Canada’s Goldfinger.”  I wonder if Rohmer has ever seen Goldfinger, or if he understands that being Goldfinger is a bad thing. 

If Auric Goldfinger – megalomaniac, thief, murderer, terrorist, pervert, cheat – had been born in Guelph, would Rohmer have written a book for him?  He is rich.

Get Money

2016.

How did that happen?

I’ve just finished reading Richard Rohmer’s Golden Phoenix: the Biography of Peter Munk and anyone who says I haven’t is a liar.  I’m ready to give it a grade (C) and vote we take the cover down from the “currently reading” side of the blog, where it’s been shaming me for four months.

What did I learn? Peter Munk made a lot of money and is a swell guy, what with all that earning and owning.  Ask anyone.  (Rohmer’s source appears to be Peter Munk.)  One time a newspaper said one of Munk’s publicly held companies paid him too much, but they were wrong.  The stockholders are lucky they got anything.

No stockholder had complained, no backlash came from investors.  The controversy was now behind him.

Well, that settles that, then.

Clairtone went bankrupt, but that was Nova Scotia’s fault.  He had this idea to take Canadian-backed mortgages and sell them in Switzerland as as "a unique, hybrid financial instrument" before it was cool, but "it was just too difficult to get an underwriting." He never got to build his golf course in the shadow of the pyramids, but that was Egypt’s fault. The trick to working with a state is knowing the right people and the proper application of money.  But no one can win them all.

You know who’s a great guy? Suharto.

You know who knows a good deal when he sees it?  Adnan Khashoggi.  He also loves to party!

You know who can be had for a price?  Brian Mulroney.

Just like Richard Rohmer.

Lost in ledger land

I second commending Brian's fortitude in ploughing through Golden Phoenix so quickly.  I have to get over my disappointment that it turned out not to be a novelization of a lost Shaw Brothers movie before I can comment at length (do I really want to do that?), but some quick takes:

1. Ledgers, stock deals, the endless search for funds, stock issues, the interminable shell games of international finance.  There are ways to make this interesting, gripping even.  Very little of that shows through - I personally couldn't make head or tail about some of the deals.  Maybe that's my failing, but sometimes I couldn't figure out how issuing new shares and taking on more debt can make you richer and richer.

2. Who is Peter Munk?  After a promising beginning with his family on the run from the Nazis, his mother trapped in Auschwitz, the eventual escape to Canada we had the makings of a real biography that balanced his achievements with his family story.  That falls apart pretty quickly as Clairtone is born and the business side takes over and smothers everything else.  Rohmer actually delves into the anguish Munk felt abandoning his mother to an austere life of poverty after being released from the Concentration Camp while he escaped to Canada, but that side of his life gets neatly ignored in favour of stock issue intrigue.  100 pages later there is an offhand reference to her living in Toronto with her new husband - how did that happen?

3.  I'm on page 250 and I still don't know what happened to his father or the family that escaped the Nazis.

4.  Brian pointed this out and I want to know:  what did the man who gave the world Clairtone and had an impact on the way people listened to music at home think about music?  Not once do we know if he cared about it all.  I presume he did - but this isn't where you'll find out.  I mean, while out among his coterie of rich and powerful friends, did he ever play them things on his home stereo?

5.  From home stereos to property development to hotel chains to oil and gas exploration to gold is some kind of journey.  I can honestly say I don't know how one led to the next thing for Munk.  Other than the fact he is "focused", I know that he DID  go from one to another over the span of his life, but there is nothing in this book that tells me how.  Maybe I expect too much.

I need to push through the last quarter of this book now - maybe all will be revealed in the closing pages.

By the Time I Get Through Phoenix

I want to salute Brian Busby for reading this book, which has stopped me like a tank trap. (I will go on, because of the human spirit.) I can detect no Rohmer in what I've read so far. This was written by a large and joyless team of business school undergrads, right? I keep getting to places where I expect the Brigadier General to at least weigh in -- how does a book with the words "Richard Rohmer" on the cover contain the word "D-Day" without an tangential exegesis on reconnaissance and the time the author met Patton, killed Rommel, and sent the pictures to Dirk Bogarde?

This is an unfair question -- because I'm getting older too -- but where's the Rohmer of Balls! and Triad?

Golden Phoenix in a Week: Fin (chapters 28-41)

I finished Golden Phoenix last week, but thought I'd let thoughts gel before writing anything more. No such luck. Nothing is gelling because the book never gels. I'm forgetting the details because it's forgettable. And so I rely on final notes:

• "The Munks have a coterie of rich and powerful friends."
• George Bush and Brian Mulroney are the world's most expensive errand boys.
• Golden Phoenix is the first of three Rohmer books to include his anecdote about George Bush almost joining the RCAF. It features twice in Generally Speaking, because a story that good bears repeating.
• Munk credits the United States with defeating the Nazis.
• Munk prides himself in not giving his children anything - other than lives of privilege, the occasional job and stock in Barrick Gold.

Somewhere near the end, Rohmer describes Munk as “a man who had at one time aspired to be prime minister”. Who knew? Nothing in the book indicates that he has the slightest interest in politics or public service.

In the end, I'm left wondering what it's all about. Not just making money, surely.

I'd say more, if it wasn't for this:

Golden Phoenix in a Week: Day Four (chapters 19-27)

The Pittsburg Press, 28 May 1978

Agreed. So why is its story deathly dull when told by the man who gave us Triad and Retaliation?

In what way can an ankh-shaped, 18-hole golf course be meant "to symbolize respect for the culture of the Pharaohs"?

Golden Phoenix in a Week: Day Three (chapters 15-18)

Damn, three days in and I'm already falling behind.

Perfectly understandable, I think. Peter Munk's early, pre-business years having been dealt with, accounts of meetings and figures have well and truly taken over. It's E.P. Taylor all over again, and familiarity breeds contempt. The Munk children are ghosts. Wife Linda appears only when she's leaving or returning or divorcing. That said, we are treated to seven pages about Peter Munk's January 1972 skiing accident and the effect it had on his budding romance with second wife Melanie Basanquet. Rohmer's contribution to same amounts to nearly one of those seven pages, the rest is supplied by Munk and Leslie Berenyi. The chapter is titled "Melanie Basanquet", though it has just as much to do with Southern Pacific Properties Limited. You can read about Linda Joy Gutterson, the first Mrs Munk, in "The Birth of Clairtone".

Golden Phoenix in a Week: Day Two (chapters 8-14)

Clairtone was a remarkable company. It was innovative in not only sound and design but marketing. Look up and you'll see Deborah Kerr, Dean Martin and a Project G in Marriage on the Rocks – an early example of product placement. A Project G also features in The Graduate.

I think Clairtone was Munk's greatest accomplishment. You'd never know it from Golden Phoenix. The biography sucks the life out of everything, reducing business to the balance sheet. Clairtone and its success came about because Munk knew something about hi-fi, though you'd be forgiven for forgetting. Only dry facts and figures matter here.

How did Munk became interested in sound reproduction? How did he become an expert? Beyond cabinetry, what role did he play in product development? What music does he listen to? Does he even listen to music?

That Golden Phoenix answers not one of these questions speaks volumes.

Pun intended.

Golden Phoenix in a Week: Day One (chapters 1-7)

It's been awhile, but I feel no guilt. This summer I tackled Raleigh on the Rocks – all of Raleigh on the Rocks, even the parts Rohmer didn't write (which is most of the book). You two will find it's the most challenging Rohmer yet. I won't be surprised if it turns out Practice and Procedure Before the Ontario Highway Transport Board is easier.

This morning, I started in on the Rohmer's 1997 Golden Phoenix: The Biography of Peter Munk. I'm quite enjoying it. Some of the pleasure has to do with the simple fact that Peter Munk isn't E.P. Taylor, but mostly it's because Golden Phoenix isn't E.P. Taylor. You'll find it a better written book. You'll also find Munk more inspiring and interesting; after all, in Clairtone he actually built something. Taylor can't make any similar claim.

I've got Golden Phoenix on interlibrary loan. It's due back next week, so I'm going to plow ahead by reading fifty or sixty pages a day. I'll be recording a few unfocused observations, but little more. I doubt there'll be much in the way of spoilers. I'll flag 'em if I see 'em.

The first thing you'll notice with Golden Phoenix is that as a physical object it is Richard Rohmer's most attractive book. The eighteen-year-old library copy I'm reading, courtesy of neighbouring Huron County, records that I'm the second borrower. The first was in July 1999. Here's to the Huron County Library for keeping the faith!

A couple of cursory notes:

• Golden Phoenix features no bibliography (typical of Rohmer);
• Golden Phoenix features no endnotes (typical of Rohmer);
• Golden Phoenix features no acknowledgements (atypical of Rohmer).

Today I read chapters one through seven, taking Peter Munk from his childhood in wartime Budapest to Toronto, the University of Toronto and the spectacular rise of Clairtone.

My casual observations (peppered with lazy queries):

• Dealing in rare stamps, nylon stockings and foreign currency smuggled across borders sure sounds like black market activity to me.
• "Peter was falling in love, and was happily aware that Linda's father, Bill Gutterson, was a wealthy pharmaceutical entrepreneur." With one exception, I can't say I really knew (or cared) what my old girlfriends' parents did for a living.
• As with his other books, most notably E.P. Taylor, Rohmer is blind when it comes to privilege. Here we have Munk's business partner "pencil-thin" David Gilmour described as someone who "had advantages slightly beyond the norm". We'll later learn that he was the son of a director at Nesbitt Thomson, a connection that opened doors  – "but not a deal-maker", Rohmer is quick to point out.
• As always, Rohmer has trouble in identifying the relevant. A man named Gerry Heifetz served as best man at Munk's wedding, and is never mentioned again. In contrast, David Gilmour's wealthy father is alive in September 1958, but dies at some point before April 1960. When did he die? Might an inheritance have played a part in supporting the early days of Clairtone? 
• Regarding the 1958 visit to the Soviet Union, I can find no trace of Linda Munk's "series of articles for the Globe and Mail about their experiences". She did have a letter to the editor published in the 30 November 1956 edition, however. It dealt with Hungarian refugees coming to Canada.
• Is Peter Munk's name really "Peter Munk"? It seems remarkably plain, particularly for one born to an "old and respected Jewish family".

Told you it would be unfocused.

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RIVER BED. 

WAIT... LET ME DO THAT AGAIN

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