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‘GO-TO GUY’ HELPED LAUNCH CANADA’S WALK OF FAME

SUSAN FERRIER MACKAY

Former executive director of Canada’s answer to Hollywood attraction was seen as the glue that held the project together

Peter Soumalias, an ebullient, persuasive and charismatic Greek-Canadian entrepreneur, collaborated with powerful partners to create Canada’s Walk of Fame, a celebration of national excellence. His tenacity and self-assurance helped propel a fledgling Toronto-based award into one of national significance, both as a tourist attraction and an annual television event with more than a million viewers.

Unlike Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, which focuses entirely on celebrities, Canada’s version, now in its 23rd year, celebrates Canadian achievements in diverse areas such as business, athletics, philanthropy, science and technology, as well as arts and entertainment. Mr. Soumalias was executive director of Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2000 and 2001 before a cerebral hemorrhage sidelined him while he was in his early 60s. He died on Oct. 1 in Toronto, from a second hemorrhage, at the age of 70.

The origins of Canada’s Walk of Fame date back to the early nineties, when Toronto City Council proposed setting a star into the sidewalk outside businessman (Honest) Ed Mirvish’s Royal Alexandra Theatre on King Street. The idea was met with resistance from the impresario himself. He told his friend Bill Ballard, a concert promoter, that the only way he would accept the honour was if there would be other recipients. Mr. Mirvish’s star was installed in 1996. It would not remain singular for long.

While it isn’t entirely clear who invited whom, Mr. Soumalias, a member of the Toronto Entertainment District Association Committee, joined Mr. Ballard, along with Dusty Cohl, co-founder of the Toronto International Film Festival, and Dianne Schwalm, then senior VP of marketing at Warner Bros. Pictures Canada, to work out the logistics of creating a walk of fame.

The four frequently met over breakfast at Bregman’s Bakery restaurant on Yonge Street or at the Kit Kat Café on King Street.

The emblem, to be engraved into granite accompanied by the honouree’s name, was redesigned as a stylized maple leaf reminiscent of a star. Recipients would also receive take-home trophies. Ms. Schwalm said each of the founders brought their own particular strengths to the table as they brainstormed over how to get credibility, press support, funding, board membership and, ultimately, recipients who deserved a Walk of Fame honour.

“Peter was the go-to guy if you needed anything done. He was effective because he was impartial. He hadn’t burned bridges in our industry so he was able to fix political hiccups such as one person not wanting a star because someone else had one. Oscar Peterson was miffed because the first pianist to get an award was Glenn Gould, so Mr. Peterson’s was awarded to him posthumously. Director Norman Jewison immediately said yes, whereas author Pierre Berton had an ornery reaction. He said he tried to get a walk of fame going himself and it would never work,” Ms. Schwalm said. “We gave him an award anyway.”

Broadcast executive Gary Slaight, one of the early board members and a financial supporter along with his father, Allan (who died last month), called Mr. Soumalias the glue that held the project together.

“In the beginning it took a lot of convincing to get the city on board, to get the sidewalk space for the emblems, and get the recipients themselves to believe it was worth devoting their time and energy to attend a ceremony. It took money and a lot of sponsorship. Peter was the driving force behind it. It wouldn’t have happened without him,” Mr. Slaight said.

The inaugural ceremony in 1998 was a splashy affair at the Royal York Hotel, produced and overseen by Mr. Soumalias. Fourteen recipients were inducted, including Mr. Jewison and ballerina Karen Kain.

Today, Canada’s Walk of Fame has more than 190 inductees, each with a personalized granite emblem on the sidewalk in a 13-block area of Toronto’s theatre district.

Peter Soumalias, born Jan. 1, 1951, in Kastoria, Greece, immigrated to Toronto at the age of 6 with his shopkeeper father, Yiannis, and mother, Soultana, a seamstress. The family had close relatives in the Greek area of Toronto’s Danforth Avenue, where they were seeking a better life for their children.

Yiannis sold feta cheese and Kalamata olives in Kensington Market, while Soultana plied her sewing skills at a furrier, something she had previously done in Greece. Peter attended high school at Riverdale Collegiate Institute and briefly, the University of Toronto in a general arts program. He dropped out after landing a well-paying job as a salesman for a company making small machine parts for General Motors.

The job was lucrative enough for him to purchase a soap factory along with a partner in London, Ont.

By then, in his late 20s, he was married to Nora Polychronopoulos, an educator with whom he would have four children.

Something about soap fascinated him. As a teenager he had taken bars from his father’s shop without telling him and, as the owner of a factory, took samples and small soap dolls for his children.

Later in life, travelling for work, individually wrapped hotel soaps accompanied him home, possibly a reminder that his first successful foray into tourism was convincing hotels to supply their guests with his product.

“It was in my dad’s DNA to always see something bigger than what was around him,” his daughter Alexandra said. “He was never intimidated. He was always reaching for things outside his comfort zone and he made it look so effortless.”

By 1991, Mr. Soumalias was divorced and leading a project called No Place Like Toronto, a marketing initiative loosely modelled around New York’s successful “I Love New York” campaign.

Giorgina Bigioni, publisher of a travel magazine, met with Mr. Soumalias to determine how her magazine could be useful. After the meeting, he walked her back to her office and “That” she says, “was that. We fell in love.”

The couple married in 1994 and had a son, Paul. Ms. Bigioni, current publisher of The Kit, a women’s lifestyle digital media platform, wrote about her husband’s devastating stroke for a Valentine’s Day feature in 2018. In the account, she recalled an Easter dinner she’d been preparing and how her husband watched attentively while she worked. When his mother arrived and began adjusting the table settings, Ms. Bigioni could see her husband becoming uncomfortable on her behalf. He let his mother know she had to stop. Ms. Bigioni wrote, “I realized at that point he could still defend me, take care of me, and love me. From that day forward, I fell in love with him all over again.”

No longer able to drum along to seventies rock on the steering wheel of his car, or walk for miles as he had once done, Mr. Soumalias spent his final years quietly while still remaining in touch with the goings-on at Canada’s Walk of Fame.

Jeffrey Latimer, the current CEO, occasionally visited Mr. Soumalias to let him know about developments to expand the award’s national presence: putting up plaques in recipients’ hometowns, and seeking out community heroes across the country for recognition.

“Peter loved Canada and felt enormous national pride,” Mr. Latimer said. “He was the one who had the energy to keep all the lights on at the beginning, and open all the doors. He was a real catalyst.”

Mr. Soumalias leaves his wife, Ms. Bigioni; children, Stefan, Yiannis, Marisa, Alexandra and Paul; siblings, Tasia and Bill; and three grandchildren.

Peter was the driving force behind it. It wouldn’t have happened without him.

GARY SLAIGHT EARLY BOARD MEMBER OF CANADA’S WALK OF FAME

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2021-10-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

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