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December 7, 2023 at 6:30am
by Mark Willis After running the photo of Nathan Phillips stopping traffic on Bay Street, I had to post this one of the Mayor welcoming Jayne Mansfield to City Hall on August 2, 1957. Toronto news photographers liked to taunt him on such occasions,”Go ahead, Nate, giver her a smooch.” He didn’t kiss Jayne, or Kim Novak, or Gina Lollobrigida. Not even the Queen. He was proud of the fact that he never kissed anyone but his wife Esther.
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5 Comments
#1. ms modigliani 12.08.2023
In his autobiography, the Mayor of All the People, my grandfather writes this about my grandmother:
She is a sensitive, intelligent, proud and determined woman, and although for eight years she was the First Lady of Toronto as wife of the mayor, she never adopted an air of superiority…The sweet nature displayed by my wife in public is truly her natural disposition. She doesn’t try to impress anyone…We celebrated our 59th Wedding Anniversary on March 7, 1967, and I pray that we still have a long path to travel together. I don’t know what I would do without her.
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They did have a long path together and a marriage of 68 years. Grandpa didn’t need Kim Novak or Gina Lollobrigida to make him feel warm. All he ever wanted was his Ett.
#2. Mark Willis 12.08.2023
Ms. M, do you have anything that she wrote about or to him?
#3. ms modigliani 12.08.2023
Maybe. I might have an old scrapbook and diary she kept from one of their trips abroad. I’ll check over the holidays when you come to Oakville.
#4. ms modigliani 12.08.2023
I do remember she always referred to him as her “sweetheart” and her “darling.”
#5. a blind flaneur 12.08.2023
[…] Mayor of All the Starlets […]
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