Lister Sinclair
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Lister Sinclair (b. 1921) is a Canadian broadcaster and playwright. Sinclair was born in Bombay to Scottish parents. He was educated in India as well as St. Paul's School in London before earning a Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia in math and physics and then a Master of Arts from the University of Toronto.
Sinclair joined the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1944 and was active in a number of capacities as a radio and then television personality including as a writer and playwright (writing over 400 radio plays), actor, panelist, producer, lecturer and commentator. Sinclair was a panelist on the show Court of Opinion for twenty-four years. In 1972 he became executive vice-president of the network but was frustrated as an executive and eventually returned to his previous role as a producer.
He has hosted a number of programs including Man at the Centre, The Nature of Things, and, from 1983 to 1999, the CBC Radio programme, Ideas. He was referred to as "easily the foremost in Canada's array of postwar playwrights" by critic Nathan Cohen.
Sinclair retired from hosting Ideas in 1999, but continues to host on a guest basis.
In 1945, Sinclair wrote a radio speech for Ontario CCF leader Ted Jolliffe delivered during the 1945 Ontario election campaign which accused Premier of Ontario George Drew of running a political gestapo unit out of the Ontario Provincial Police. The accuastions were denied by Drew and may have hurt the CCF's credibility with voters. However, the charge was proven true in the 1970s by archival documents uncovered by a researcher.
Sinclair served as vice-president of the of the Canadian Conference of the Arts in the 1980s. He was also a leading member of the Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA).
Sinclair was awarded the Order of Canada in 1985.
External links
- CBC Online Chat with Lister Sinclair (http://www.cbc.ca/interact/chats/lister_sinclair.html) from 2001.
- IDEAS: A tribute to Lister Sinclair (http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/lister/)