Thursday, April 15

(I Can't Find) The Words

Norman Campbell, co-writer of the musical Anne of Green Gables has died at the age of 80. I meant to post something about this earlier, however it slipped my mind.

I had met and briefly talked to Mr. Campbell on a couple of occasions, the last time probably ten years ago after he had just seen a production of Annekenstein. I was a little trepidacious about meeting him that time, because I wasn't sure how he'd react to our show, which (lovingly) poked quite a bit of fun at his musical. He could have been offended (if he was an ass), but he didn't appear to be. I was pleased that he told me that he found it very entertaining and smart.

Anyway, that's my boring Norman Campbell story.



5 comments:

Cyn said...

I was saddened when I heard Norman died. He was gentle man. Him and his wife Elaine were great supporters of theatre on PEI. Each summer the DQ's performed they'd be there opening night and always gracious and complimentary.

Nils Ling said...

What I loved about the man was his generosity of spirit. Always something nice to say after a show, and it meant so much coming from someone with his credentials.
We'd have Elaine and Norman over once a summer, for dinner. I'd always make sure my kids were there. He had so many amazing stories. Christ, the man could start stories with the words "One time Sinatra and I were ..." or "It was like that time Mel Torme and I ..." or "So Liberace said to me ..."!
I was honoured to know Norman Campbell, and I'm grateful my kids got a chance to meet him. Wonderful accomplishments, sure. But more importantly, he was a great human being.

Davey said...

C'mon, Nils, tell the story about how he got the name of the road to his summer home changed.

Nils Ling said...

One of my favourite Norman Campbell stories, although my facts may be a little off: Norman and Elaine bought a house on a hill in Covehead, and to get to it you needed to go down a long, nameless dirt road. Since nobody else lived on the road, they applied to the municipality to have it named, and were hoping it could be identified as the road to turn on to get to their place.
So, did they ask to have it called "Campbell Drive"? Not clever enough, and could possibly be rejected - this isn't the kind of place where you name roads after people.
So instead, they asked the municipality to name the road in honour of the brave soldiers who fell on the beaches of France on D-Day. And now, if you want to get to their house, you drive out to Covehead and make a right on Norm and Elaine. Er ... Normandy Lane.

sven said...

norm always sported a fantastic array of mutton chop styles throughout the seventies, a pioneer with a few of them I believe