Adrian Waller
Encyclopedia
Adrian Waller was a magazine journalist and author. In his writing career he earned a living from nearly 600 articles in magazines, and from newspaper columns that appeared in the United Kingdom
, Canada
, and Japan
. As a journalist Waller covered a wide spectrum of topics and wrote profiles of literally hundreds of famous, well-known people, including the tenors Luciano Pavarotti
and Jon Vickers
, popular singers Paul Anka
, Donny Osmond
, and Kate Smith
, actors Soupy Sales
and Donald Sutherland
, bandleaders [Lawrence Welk] and Guy Lombardo
, and other famous people.
, north Wales. At 17, shortly after his mother died suddenly from a hernia, he began studying at England's Blackheath Conservatoire of Music. By his early 20s, after having served a mandatory two years of military service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, Waller appeared as an extra in English seaside shows. He became a reporter on a small newspaper in Sheerness
, Kent. He also contributed news to London newspapers.
and Mail-Star in Halifax, Nova Scotia
. He moved to Toronto
and Hamilton, Ontario
, to write for other papers. This work continued through the 1970s and much of the 1980s, when he worked for the Reader's Digest as a roving freelance editor among other jobs. In 1989, he contested a seat in the Quebec provincial election for the upstart Equality Party
. Between 1991 and 1997 he worked in Japan as a copy editor and part-time English teacher.
, and Canada's Maritime Provinces upgrade their work. Some 40 productions culminated with successes at the Dominion Drama Festival
, known as the DDF. For three straight years (1966, 1967, and 1968) he took an amateur group to the Festival's finals. As his writing career demanded less and less of his time, Waller turned to acting. He appeared in character roles at Montreal's Saidye Bronfman Theatre, Thêatre La Poudrière, and Centaur Theatre
, and in small roles on CBC radio plays in both Toronto and Halifax, Nova Scotia.
in Chigasaki and Nihon University
in Mishima
, and a part-time writing instructor at Nihon University’s College of Law in Tokyo
. He sometimes worked shifts as a copy editor at NHK-TV. Waller left Japan in 1998 on feeling exhausted and unwell. Back in Canada he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He recovered under the care of the Japan-born urologist Dr.Yosh Taguchi who performed surgery on him at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal. During his treatment, Waller edited a book called The Prostate, Everything You Need To Know About The Man Gland (ISBN 1-54109-553-3), published in Toronto.
, Switzerland
, and Toronto
, Canada
, respectively.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. As a journalist Waller covered a wide spectrum of topics and wrote profiles of literally hundreds of famous, well-known people, including the tenors Luciano Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti
right|thumb|Luciano Pavarotti performing at the opening of the Constantine Palace in [[Strelna]], 31 May 2003. The concert was part of the celebrations for the 300th anniversary of [[St...
and Jon Vickers
Jon Vickers
Jonathan Stewart Vickers, CC , known professionally as Jon Vickers, is a retired Canadian heldentenor.Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, he was the sixth in a family of eight children. In 1950, he was awarded a scholarship to study opera at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto...
, popular singers Paul Anka
Paul Anka
Paul Albert Anka, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and actor.Anka first became famous as a teen idol in the late 1950s and 1960s with hit songs like "Diana'", "Lonely Boy", and "Put Your Head on My Shoulder"...
, Donny Osmond
Donny Osmond
Donald Clark "Donny" Osmond is an American singer, musician, actor, dancer, radio personality, and former teen idol. Osmond has also been a talk and game show host, record producer and author. In the mid 1960s, he and four of his elder brothers gained fame as the Osmond Brothers on the long...
, and Kate Smith
Kate Smith
Kathryn Elizabeth "Kate" Smith was an American Popular singer, best known for her rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". Smith had a radio, television, and recording career spanning five decades, which reached its pinnacle in the 1940s.Smith was born in Greenville, Virginia...
, actors Soupy Sales
Soupy Sales
Soupy Sales was an American comedian, actor, radio-TV personality and host, and jazz aficionado. He was best known for his local and network children's television show, Lunch with Soupy Sales; a series of comedy sketches frequently ending with Sales receiving a pie in the face, which became his...
and Donald Sutherland
Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
, bandleaders [Lawrence Welk] and Guy Lombardo
Guy Lombardo
Gaetano Alberto "Guy" Lombardo was a Canadian-American bandleader and violinist.Forming "The Royal Canadians" in 1924 with his brothers Carmen, Lebert, and Victor and other musicians from his hometown, Lombardo led the group to international success, billing themselves as creating "The Sweetest...
, and other famous people.
Early life
Adrian Charles Waller, the son of a British customs officer, held down a series of menial jobs in his youth (barman, factory worker, printing company packer, and back-office clerk) to earn money for music and drama studies in London, England. At 16, he won first prize in the junior tenor class at the Welsh National Eisteddfod in LlandudnoLlandudno
Llandudno is a seaside resort and town in Conwy County Borough, Wales. In the 2001 UK census it had a population of 20,090 including that of Penrhyn Bay and Penrhynside, which are within the Llandudno Community...
, north Wales. At 17, shortly after his mother died suddenly from a hernia, he began studying at England's Blackheath Conservatoire of Music. By his early 20s, after having served a mandatory two years of military service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, Waller appeared as an extra in English seaside shows. He became a reporter on a small newspaper in Sheerness
Sheerness
Sheerness is a town located beside the mouth of the River Medway on the northwest corner of the Isle of Sheppey in north Kent, England. With a population of 12,000 it is the largest town on the island....
, Kent. He also contributed news to London newspapers.
Career
In 1963, Adrian Waller settled in Canada as a journalist, working first for the Chronicle-HeraldHalifax Chronicle-Herald
The Chronicle Herald is a broadsheet published in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The largest newspaper company in Nova Scotia, The Chronicle Herald is also the highest circulation newspaper in the Atlantic provinces and is currently the largest independently owned newspaper company in Canada...
and Mail-Star in Halifax, Nova Scotia
City of Halifax
Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...
. He moved to Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
and Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...
, to write for other papers. This work continued through the 1970s and much of the 1980s, when he worked for the Reader's Digest as a roving freelance editor among other jobs. In 1989, he contested a seat in the Quebec provincial election for the upstart Equality Party
Equality Party (Quebec)
The Equality Party was a political party in Quebec, Canada, that promoted the use of English in Quebec on an equal basis with French. Four Equality Party members were elected to Quebec's National Assembly in 1989, as part of an anglophone reaction to changes made by the governing Liberals to...
. Between 1991 and 1997 he worked in Japan as a copy editor and part-time English teacher.
North American theatre work
In 1964, Waller was contracted by the Arts Council of Canada to help amateur groups throughout Ontario, ManitobaManitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
, and Canada's Maritime Provinces upgrade their work. Some 40 productions culminated with successes at the Dominion Drama Festival
Dominion Drama Festival
The Dominion Drama Festival was an organisation in Canada that sought to promote amateur theatre across the country. It lasted, in one form or another, from 1932 until 1978.- Founding :...
, known as the DDF. For three straight years (1966, 1967, and 1968) he took an amateur group to the Festival's finals. As his writing career demanded less and less of his time, Waller turned to acting. He appeared in character roles at Montreal's Saidye Bronfman Theatre, Thêatre La Poudrière, and Centaur Theatre
Centaur Theatre
The Centaur Theatre Company is a theatre company based in Montreal, Quebec. It was founded in 1969 by The Centaur Foundation for the Performing Arts with Maurice Podbrey as the Artistic and Executive Director, and Herb Auerbach as Chairman of the Board....
, and in small roles on CBC radio plays in both Toronto and Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Working in Japan
In October 1989, Adrian Waller took a job in Japan with the Japan Times Weekly, a publication with an easy-to-read format that seeks to help English-language students understand the news. In 1994, he quit the "Weekly" and became a part-time English teacher at Bunkyo UniversityBunkyo University
is a private university in Japan.The Chinese characters of the word "Bunkyo" mean education and learning. The university offers courses mainly in education and research of the cultural and social sciences, and is well-known for its teacher training...
in Chigasaki and Nihon University
Nihon University
Nihon University is the largest university in Japan. Akiyoshi Yamada, the minister of justice, founded Nihon Law School in October 1889....
in Mishima
Mishima, Shizuoka
is a city located in eastern Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. As of 2009, the city has an estimated population of 112,078 and a population density of 1,800 persons per km². The total area is 62.13 km²...
, and a part-time writing instructor at Nihon University’s College of Law in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
. He sometimes worked shifts as a copy editor at NHK-TV. Waller left Japan in 1998 on feeling exhausted and unwell. Back in Canada he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He recovered under the care of the Japan-born urologist Dr.Yosh Taguchi who performed surgery on him at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal. During his treatment, Waller edited a book called The Prostate, Everything You Need To Know About The Man Gland (ISBN 1-54109-553-3), published in Toronto.
Personal life
Adrian Waller and his second wife, Irene, who he married in 1983, live in [Bainsville, Ontario]. Their daughters, Nathalie and Zoë, live in GenevaGeneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, and Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, respectively.
Published books
- Theatre on a Shoestring (Clarke-Irwin, Toronto), 1972. A book on how to stage a theatrical production on a low budget and achieve maximum success. ISBN 0-7620-0557-5
- Adrian's Guide to Music (Clarke-Irwin, Toronto). A book about the history of music, and how you too can enjoy it. ISBN 0-7620-0590-7
- Writing!!, An informal, anecdotal guide to the secrets of crafting and selling your own non-fiction (McClelland & Stewart, Toronto), 1987. An account of the author's own work with Reader's Digest — and the secrets of how you too can find success as a magazine writer. ISBN 0-7510-8794-2
- The Canadian Writer's Market, Eighth Revised Edition (McClelland & Stewart, Toronto), 1988. A book aimed at helping Canadian writers get their own work published, and where, and how. ISBN 0-7710-8798-5
- No Ordinary Hotel, The Ritz-Carlton's first seventy-five years (Véhicule Press, Montreal), 1988. An anecdote-filled history of what was one of the world's finest hotel chains. ISBN 0-919790-86-5
- The Canadian Writer's Market, Ninth Revised Edition (McClelland & Stewart, Toronto), 1992. A book aimed at helping Canadian writers get their work published, and where, and how. ISBN 0-7720-8796-0
- Being Over Here, a Western journalist's take on Japan, A collection of Japan Times Weekly columns (Yohan Publications, Tokyo) 1992. ISBN 4-89684-223-5
- The Canadian Writer's Market, Tenth Revised Edition, 227 pages (McClelland & Stewart, Toronto), 1992. A book aimed at helping Canadian writers get their work published, and where, and how. ISBN 0-7710-8796-3
- The Canadian Writer's Market Tenth Revised Edition (McClelland & Stewart, Toronto), 1993. A book aimed at helping Canadian writers get their work published, and where, and how. ISBN 0-7710-8796-2
Textbooks and academic works
- Really Good Stories for the Japanese Classroom, a reading textbook (MacMillan, Tokyo, 1995), co-authored with Irene Waller. ISBN 4-89585-194-X