As the host of Fashion Television for nearly three decades, Jeanne Beker is without a doubt one of Canada’s television icons. The Toronto-born television personality, now 72 years old, approached the TV show with poise, showing viewers the beautiful chaos behind the scenes of the fashion world.
Beker interviewed models at a time when they were only supposed to be seen strutting the runways, and she interviewed the greats, like Karl Lagerfeld and Alexander McQueen with grace, wit and ease.
Her new memoir, “Heart on My Sleeve: Stories From a Life Well Worn,” is put together as a series of anecdotes from her life that revolve around a symbolic sartorial piece or accessory. Here are eight gems from the book that you probably didn’t know about Canada’s own bonafide fashion icon.
One of Beker’s most cherished accessories is one she doesn’t have anymore —it’s also one that some might not consider fashionable.
“The simplest wardrobe accoutrements can sometimes resonate the loudest,” she writes of the brown satchel that sat in the back of her mother’s closet for years, an accessory her mom brought to Canada from Austria in 1948.
It’s what the satchel carried that made it most special, according to Beker: “It was stuffed with precious old black-and-white photos of relatives, most of whom had perished in the Holocaust, some of whom had survived and found refuge at Bindermichl, the Austrian displaced persons camp, where my parents lived for three years after the war.”
Beker writes that her father was a Polish soldier and her mother was a student seven years younger. Both her parents came from the same village called Kozowa, in what was then eastern Poland. “They met on a blind date, fell deeply in love and carried on a clandestine relationship.”
However, the couple were forced to hide their love. Beker’s maternal grandfather was very religious and never would’ve approved of their relationship. Beker writes her dad came “from a very poor family on the wrong side of the tracks.”
Beker’s mother was 18 years old when the war broke out. When the Nazis arrived in her shtetl, she and nine of her family members hid in a secret underground bunker in her father’s house.
“While trying to locate the bunker, the Nazis plugged up some pipes through which my mother and her relatives were getting air. All of her family suffocated in their own home. My mother was the sole survivor,” she writes.
Her father realized it was only a matter of time before the Germans captured and killed him, so he left the army and made his way back to Kozowa to look for her mother. “They reunited and together went into hiding. … They were constantly on the run, knowing that at any moment they could be discovered and killed.”
While Beker was studying theatre performance at York University in 1973, she became intrigued with the art of mime.
“[It was] a form of corporeal expression that appealed to me greatly because in mime, either you create the illusion or you don’t,” she says. “There could be nothing half-assed about it.”
Beker took some classes from a mime named Paul Gaulin in Toronto. She learned his teacher was a man in Paris named Étienne Decroux, who was known as the father of modern mime. “Decroix had taught the famed Marcel Marceau himself. Even [David] Bowie studied with Decroux. I knew I had to learn from this master.”
In October 1981, Beker was thrilled when she was assigned to cover a high-end fundraiser gala at Toronto’s Sheraton Centre that then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau would be attending. Beker, who was an entertainment reporter for CityPulse News at the time, didn’t think she’d get a chance to even be close to Trudeau, much less interview him.
“I located my cameraman, and he handed me the mic,” she writes. “My eyes scoured the giant scene, which was buzzing with a wide range of folks. Towards the back, I spotted the guest of honour.”
The dashing tuxedoed PM was sitting at a table all by himself with what looked like a security officer standing by.Jeanne Beker, in her memoir
After her colleague urged her to approach him, Beker went up to the table. She introduced herself and asked if she could speak with Trudeau. “The classy PM looked over at me and my cameraman and said something to the man,” she writes.
After getting approval, she greeted the Canadian politician. Trudeau replied saying, “Is that on the record, that you have lovely eyes?” He added, “And I like your dress, too.”
Not all of Beker’s fashion statements have gone over so well. In 1992, she splurged on a pair of trousers by Anna Sui, a brand that had been the “go-to label for models and pop stars,” Beker writes.
As the fashion fates would have it, Beker was invited, as host of MovieTelevision, to interview Madonna in New York a few weeks after making her purchase. “I immediately thought of my new Anna Sui bell-bottoms. Besides having the right theatrical flare, these fabulous pants were designed by one of Madonna’s favourite designers. No doubt Madonna would be impressed by taste and style.”
Beker paired the pants with an olive-green shirt with billowing sleeves. When Beker visited the hotel where the interviews were taking place, she recalls the singer not being a good mood. Still, Beker was excited to meet her.
“That’s when my heart skipped a beat. Madonna was wearing the exact same velvet bell-bottoms. ‘How funny,’ I said. ‘We’re wearing exactly the same pants,'” Beker remembers, to which a not-amused Madonna replied, “Oh, are we?”
In April 2011, Fashion Television sent Beker to London to cover Prince William and Kate Middleton’s royal wedding. She was to report from a rooftop across from Westminster Abbey on the morning of the event.
The fashion house bestowed the honour of designing the now-Princess of Wales’ wedding gown was top secret, so there was much speculation on the subject. Some thought it might be Alexander McQueen, but since the brand was owned by Italian company Gucci, it would’ve been the first time a British-owned house wasn’t chosen.
Still, Beker had hoped it’d be McQueen. The famed designer had died one year before and English designer Sarah Burton had taken over the label, making it “the most fitting choice,” according to Beker.
The night before the nuptials, Beker was talking to her old friend, Canadian-born, London-based designer Todd Lynn, who was close friends with Burton. Lynn told Becker over the phone, “I was passing by the Goring Hotel in Belgravia, where Kate and her family are staying, and I saw someone stepping out of the car with a huge garment bag and going into the hotel with it.”
He said he couldn’t tell what it was, but he got a glimpse of the person’s shoes — black ballet flats that Burton always wore. That tidbit helped Beker become the first journalist to report that Middleton was wearing McQueen for her special day.
One of Beker’s favourite accessories is the Order of Canada she received in 2013. Back then, she received an invitation from former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s wife, Laureen, to stay with them overnight before the festival, since it was to be held across the street.
Beker had met Laureen six years earlier, and the two hit off to become fast friends: “Laureen had heard through a mutual friend that my mum and I would be visiting Ottawa for a Holocaust memorial. And since Laureen has been a fan of Fashion Television, she wanted to meet me. So she extended a very gracious invitation to come to 24 Sussex Drive for dinner.”
Two weeks after her mother’s passing, Beker was supposed to attend a gala fundraiser at the McMichael Art Gallery in Kleinburg, Ont. Since she was grieving her mom, she wasn’t in the mood to attend.
Driving to the gallery on a Sunday afternoon had been one of her mother’s favourite outings. But there, one of the gallery’s board members coaxed her to go. However, Beker didn’t have a date so she took her best friend, Penny.
I imagined my mum behind me, nodding her approval at my outfit. I knew she wouldn’t want me to mope.Jeanne Beker, in her memoir
Soon after the two got to the gala, Penny had disappeared into the party. But then, Beker caught the eye of a silver-haired gentleman with a goatee. “I noticed right away that he was wearing a sharp gray suit. His eyes didn’t waver — they remained glued to mine.”
“Hi, my name is Iain MacInnes,” he introduced himself. “I’m on the foundation board of the McMichael, and I wanted to congratulate you on your career. I’ve always admired you for having kept yourself so relevant.” It was exactly what Beker needed to hear at the time, spurring the beginning of a relationship that has only deepened over the years.
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