Joseph Mark Glazner (friend for nearly forty years)
Entered
November 20, 2018
from Toronto, Ontario
REST IN PEACE.
William “Bill” Kurchak, b. April 24, 1945, Thorold, Ontario – d. November 16, 2018, Toronto, Ontario
Family man, friend, TV producer, broadcaster, entrepreneur, magazine publisher, restaurateur, storyteller, stock promoter, corporate, government, and political adviser, amateur hockey and basketball player – from a heart attack after a long and difficult battle with Lewy body dementia.
Some of you may recognize the illness, Lewy body dementia, as the same one comedian Robin Williams was suffering from before his death in 2014. CNN founder and billionaire Ted Turner also is suffering from this horrible, debilitating of disease, which manifests itself with both Parkinson’s-like symptoms and dementia. It stole the better part of the last six years of the life of Bill Kurchak, one of the most gregarious, outgoing, generous, and likable people I have known.
Generous to a fault, Bill rarely passed a homeless person on the street without stopping to talk and giving what spare money he had on him.
We met nearly forty years ago through a mutual friend when Bill was the host of the nightly business news segment on Toronto’s City TV. An avid fiction reader, he insisted on doing a segment on me after the launch of my first series, the Money Mysteries, were published by Warner Books in the late 1970s.
We kept in touch after he moved to Banff, Alberta in 1981 and through his subsequent moves to Calgary and Vancouver. Most of the time we spoke at length at least once a week by phone, and we met in person whenever he made periodic visits to Toronto for business and to see family several times a year.
In 1984, Bill brought me to Ottawa for a short period to work with him on the campaign of Liberal Cabinet Minister John Roberts in the leadership race to replace the retiring Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
Although the Honorable John Roberts lost to John Turner, Bill, John Roberts, and I carried on a long friendship and ate many meals together over the following years, discussing politics, current events, art, literature, and whatever else these two fascinating and engaging men could conjure up.
Through many ups and downs—example, in September 1990 when Bill was 40, the office of his thriving public relations business was wiped out in a fire; his second son, Brennan, was born, and he was rushed to the hospital for a quadruple bypass heart surgery—he remained upbeat, optimistic, and bubbling with ideas. He recovered from his surgery, produced another son, Blake, and went on to start several more companies in the years after that. Always looking at the bright side of life, if you gave Bill a lemon, he would make lemonade with a side dish of lemon custard pie.
Two and a half years ago, as his disease progressed and Bill could no longer safely look after himself, his eldest son, Morgan, and his first wife, Marie, brought him back to Toronto where he lived out the remainder of his life under the care of his family and close friends.
Although his illness robbed him of his ability to say more than a word or two, and eventually left him bedridden and helpless, he continued to somehow charm the caregivers at the nursing home.
Though his legendary stories of adventures with the likes of John Lennon, Norman Mailer, and Canadian broadcasting legends like Patrick Watson and Moses Znaimer could no longer be told, he was able to form his two fingers into the peace sign and say my name when I came to visit him each week.
Bill was a good soul, a kind heart, and he will be greatly missed by all who knew him.
