Maggie Morris Smolensky (born Margaret Glenesk Beal, December 10, 1925; died September 4, 2014) was a Canadian radio and television personality of the 1960s best known as a panelist on the
CBC Television
CBC Television (also known as CBC TV) is a Canadian English-language broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster. The network began operations on September 6, 1952. Its French-l ...
show '' Flashback'' and as one of the first women on the CBC English language announce staff.
Career
Maggie Morris began her professional career in radio drama in Winnipeg in 1954, moving to
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
in 1955 where her TV career included co-hosting the local programs ''Contact'' and '' Diplomatic Passport''. She was the founding co-president of the Ottawa branch of ACTRA in 1960.
In 1962 in Toronto, she won a spot on ''Flashback'', a new national CBC TV quiz show where she was the only cast member to remain for all six seasons (1962–1968). During the same period, she hosted her own CBC Radio music shows ''Swing Home With Maggie'' and ''Midnight With Maggie'', and made guest appearances in such Canadian TV series as ''
Wojeck
''Wojeck'' is a Canadian dramatic television series, which aired on CBC Television from 1966 to 1968. It was arguably the first successful drama series on English Canadian television.
Plot
Steve Wojeck is a crusading big city coroner who regul ...
'' and ''
Quentin Durgens, M.P.
''Quentin Durgens, M.P.'' is a Canadian dramatic television series, which aired on CBC Television from 1965 to 1969.Jan Tennant) later that year.
Maggie Morris's subsequent careers included working in public relations for
Bell Canada
Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in t ...
and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Volunteer activities included reading for the CNIB in the Recording Library for the Blind for 25 years, and writing letters for
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
.
Personal life
Margaret Beal, the only child of James Cooper Beal and Jane McCallum Glenesk, was born in London, England, and raised in Scarborough, Yorkshire. Her memoir of growing up in Scarborough in the 1930s is archived online at the Scarborough Archeological and Heritage Society. In 1940 shortly after the outbreak of World War II, she was evacuated through the Children's Overseas Reception Board. She arrived at Pier 21, which has since been turned into the
Canadian Museum of Immigration
The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is Canada's national museum of immigration. The museum occupies part of Pier 21, the former ocean liner terminal and immigration shed from 1928 to 1971. Pier 21 is Canada's l ...
, where a memoir of her life as well as the diary she wrote during the evacuation are available online in its Collection. She spent most of the war in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, where she attended Kelvin High School. In 1944, she returned to England and trained as a registered nurse at the Scarborough General Hospital obtaining her certificate of midwifery at North Middlesex Hospital. In 1950 she settled in Canada having gone back to Winnipeg for a wedding and eventually marrying the best man. She has two children from that marriage which ended in divorce. In 1971 she married Stanley Smolensky, a NASA engineer who was the Deputy Director of Launch Vehicles for the Apollo Program. He died of a heart attack later the same year.
Maggie Morris Smolensky died at home in Toronto in 2014 at age 88.''Globe and Mail'', Sept. 29, 2014: "Broadcaster Maggie Morris Smolensky battled sexism at CBC" /ref>