Mordecai Richler William Weintraub Popular Books

Mordecai Richler William Weintraub Biography & Facts

William Weintraub (February 19, 1926 – November 6, 2017) was a Canadian documentarian/filmmaker, journalist and author, best known for his long career with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). Early life Weintraub was born in Montreal, to Louis Weintraub and Mina Blumer Weintraub, and grew up in the blue-collar neighbourhood of Verdun. His father had been a stock broker; he lost everything in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and worked as the manager of a corner store. William studied English Literature and political science at McGill University, where he had worked on the McGill Daily. In 1947, he took the job of a ski reporter at The Montreal Gazette, from which he was fired for trying to unionize. His time at the Gazette was the basis for his 1961 novel Why Rock the Boat?, which director John Howe turned into a film in 1974. Career From 1951 to 1955, Weintraub worked as a copy editor at Weekend Picture Magazine. He became interested in the new medium of television and, in 1955, after taking a two-week course in script-writing, started freelancing as a writer with the CBC and the NFB. In 1965, he joined the NFB staff and stayed until his retirement in 1987, writing, producing and/or directing 115 documentaries and short films. Productions ranged from Canada: Beef Cattle to historical documentaries to a portrait of Canadian writer Margaret Laurence. His final documentary The Rise and Fall of English Montreal dealt with the second large Quebec diaspora that began in the 1960s and accelerated rapidly after the 1976 Quebec election. The National Post wrote that he said that Torontonians should express their gratitude to a major benefactor of the city and erect a very large heroic statue at the head of Bay Street of former Premier of Quebec René Lévesque. From 1975 to 1976, Weintraub was the director, National Film Board studio in Nairobi, Kenya. He served on the international jury of the Kraków Film Festival and was on the board of the Quebec Council for the Diffusion of Cinema. He was a member of the Canadian delegation that visited China's film industry in 1977, a delegate to the UNESCO Conference on Film and Television, and was a recipient of a Canada Council Senior Arts Fellowship. Weintraub published four books after his seventieth birthday, including City Unique (1996), an exploration of English Montreal in the 1940s and 1950s, which received the QSPELL Prize for Non-Fiction from the Quebec Writers' Federation Awards. Among Weintraub's contemporaries and friends were Mordecai Richler, Mavis Gallant, Norman Levine and Brian Moore. His correspondence with these writers was the basis of his 2001 memoir Getting Started. Weintraub's satirical 1979 novel The Underdogs provoked controversy by imagining a future socialist republic of Quebec, in which English-speakers were an oppressed minority, complete with a violent resistance movement. One planned stage version was cancelled before its premiere, but another version was later a hit at the Just For Laughs festival. Personal life Weintraub's first marriage, to Bernice Grafstein ended in divorce. In 1967, he married Madga Landau, who had emigrated to Canada from Poland; they remained married until her death in 2012. Neither marriage produced children. From an early age, Weintraub suffered from depression. He dealt with it with Psychoanalysis, Electroconvulsive therapy and, eventually, by abstaining from alcohol. Legacy In 2003, Weintraub was invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2018, McGill University established the William Weintraub Prize in memory of William and Magda. It is an annual cash award, given by the university's Quebec Studies Program to one undergraduate student exploring the politics and culture of Quebec and Montreal. Filmography (All for the National Film Board of Canada) Carnival - documentary short, Julian Biggs 1955 - writer Road of Iron - documentary short, Walford Hewitson 1955 - writer New Hearts for Old - TV series episode, Jean Lenauer 1955 - writer Embassy - documentary short, Don Haldane 1956 - writer Is It a Woman’s World? - documentary short, Don Haldane 1956 - writer Stress - documentary short, Ian MacNeill 1956 - writer Canadians Abroad - documentary short, Don Haldane 1956 - writer Fighter Wing – documentary short, Don Haldane 1956 - writer Saskatchewan Traveller - documentary short, Don Haldane 1956 - writer Portrait of the Family - documentary short, Ronald Dick 1957 - writer The Invisible Keystone - documentary short, Ronald Dick 1957 - writer Four Centuries of Growing Pains - documentary short, Ronald Dick, Nicholas Balla 1957 - writer The Colonies Look Ahead - documentary short, Ronald Dick 1957 - writer Can It Hold Together? - documentary short, Ronald Dick 1957 Crisis in Asia - documentary short, Ronald Dick 1957 The Ghost That Talked - documentary short, Don Haldane 1957 - writer A Letter from Oxford - documentary short, Julian Biggs 1957 Colonialism: Ogre or Angel? - documentary short, John Howe 1957 Million Dollar Smile - TV series episode, David Boisseau 1957 - writer Storm Clouds Over the Colonies - documentary short, Ronald Dick 1957 - writer Ten Days That Shook the Commonwealth - documentary short, Ronald Dick 1957 - writer Poverty and Plenty - documentary short, John Howe 1957 - writer Road to Independence - documentary short, Ronald Dick 1957 - writer They Called It White Man’s Burden - documentary short, John Howe 1957 - writer Black and White in South Africa - documentary short, John Howe & Ronald Dick 1957 - writer First Novel - documentary short, Donald Wilder 1958 - writer School for the Stage - documentary short, Julian Biggs 1958 - writer Canada: World Citizen - documentary short, Julian Biggs 1959 - writer Correlieu - documentary short, Jean Palardy 1959 - writer In the Beginning a Wilderness of Air - documentary short, Richard Gilbert 1959 - writer Double Heritage - documentary short, Richard Gilbert 1959 - writer The Golden Age - documentary short, Richard Gilbert 1959 - writer Sunshine and Eclipse (1927-1934) - documentary short 1960 - writer and producer The Good, Bright Days (1919-1927) - documentary short 1960 - writer and producer Twilight of an Era: 1934-1939 - documentary short 1960 - writer and producer Thousand Islands Summer - documentary short, Roger Blais 1960 - writer Sun, Sand and Sea: The Region - documentary short, James Beveridge 1961 - writer The Awakening - documentary short, James Beveridge 1961 - writer Vote for Michalski - documentary short, John Howe 1961 - writer Yukon Old, Yukon New - documentary short, John Howe 1962 - writer Sun, Sand and Sea - documentary short, James Beveridge 1962 - writer Aspirations - documentary short, James Beveridge 1962 - writer The Impact of the West - documentary short, James Beveridge 1962 - writer Nahanni - documentary short, Donald Wilder 1962 - writer The Contest for Power - documentary short, James Beveridge 1962 - writer New Voices - documentary short, James Beveridge 1962 - wr.... 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