Bill's main interest was acting. In fact he originally trained as a radio actor, but took up news reading because the paychecks were regular.
After he moved to Hamilton, he joined the Players' Guild, Canada's oldest continuously operated amateur theatre group.
There was a close affinity between the Guild and the local radio and television personalities and Bill wasn't the only one to get involved.
He made his debut in the 1959 season as "Yank" in "The Hasty Heart", with his good friend Frank Aldous.
His first play with a major role was in a production of 'Picnic', and it got him some immediate notice from the Spectator:
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| (Click to see entire review) |
I believe this is a publicity shot for the play:
There were many other roles, including Captain Powers in "Visit to a Small Planet" and Michael in "The Moon is Blue", alongside Frank, Lee Daniels and Bill Webb:
A certain member of the production crew frequently appears in the playbill's back pages:
Coming up next: Hey, don't I know you from work?
We can all thank Alf and Kathy Robertshaw fo their influence. Joyce Parker was renting a room from them in the 50's, and encouraged her involvement. She resisted for a while. When Bill moved to town, it was their influence that got him involved. Since they both worked at CKOC at the time, sparks began to fly. Bill was engaged to a woman in Ottawa, who had no real inerest in marriage or moving to Hamilton, so when a bit of pressure was given, the engagement ended. So Joyce, who was being noticed by the man with the baby blue eyes, sruck up a freindship. Encouraged the involvement with the guild, after chatting with him about acting, and the rest as they say is History.
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