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WEST VANCOUVER Journalist kay ‘Alsop (right) interviewed Joan Crawford in Winnipeg in the ‘60s. “it was late :August:and she was-wearing a mink toque; the suit looked {ike it was made by some- body’s aunt. . She had no fashion sense. Reaily. It was the funniest thing.”

“ONE OF it should ‘have ‘happened, says Kay. Alsop

of a 33-year career in journalism that has taken her

-to the.fashion. capitals of the world and granted her “interviews with such luminaries as Joan Crawford, Indira Gandhi, Tony Bennett and Johnny Carson. .

he longtime “West” Van-

couver resident, it all started with a six-week -feature-writing night course in Winnipeg in the ’60s.

“| didn’t do anything until the

children were in school,” but then the instructor, an associate editor

at The Tribune, liked her work and

saw that.a numberof her assign- ments ended up on that paper's editorial page. : .

Before long, the middle-aged . mother of three was offered a job as Style magazine's western’ cor-’.

respondent. _

A spot appearance:on' a’ CBC ‘afternoon ladies’ television show’’ led to an interview with the show’s producer, ‘and with “no education, no training in jourrial- ism," she landed a hosting spot on the afternocn show.

“They . (floor director’ David “Ruskin anc: “Reach for the Top man” /co-host Bill. Guest) always liked it because ! broke up laughing; | would roar laughing,” she recails.

Twelve years later and in Van- couver as a lifestyles reporter for The Province and the first woman to. fly with the Canadian Snowbirds, Alsop was. stil! laughing.

“? have a -letter from Major Miller who recalls that | laughed from takeoff to landing, even when we did negative Gs and ‘ate our own smoke,’ "' she writes in a post-interview note hand-delivered to the News.

During. her interview with lifestyles editor Pat Wallace, in ‘68, she was asked if she’d ever done “makeup.”

“Well, I've always done my own makeup on the show,’ she had - replied, not knowing that

makeup was another word (for layout or page design, and she was off to a shaky start.

(Alsop’s first story, about an electric house on the North Shore, took her two days to complete.)

But soen she was on a rail, in- terviewing great entertainers, movie stars and political figures.

Back in the Bayridge rancher she shares with Cy, her husband of 51

Layne Christensen SPOTLIGHT FEATURE

years, Alsop,-now officially retired (she freelances for the Whistler Journal and Canadian Living), flips through a stack of photographs and nine scrapbooks of press clip- pings.

The face of Joan Crawford, with a forty-something Alsep at her side, stares up from one photo.

“That was the time she was having trouble with her kids — Christina, | think,’ recalls Alsop. “And the reporters were very merciless in their questioning of her. She became very nervous and her eyes were just flashing.

“t happened tc notice that on her feet she had these Cinderella slippers — plastic, high heels and see-through, And her feet were tiny. So | said to her, ‘What size are your feet?” And she said, ‘Five.’ And | said ‘Have you kept all of your shoes from the movie- star days?’ And she said she had."

Alsop had .successfully directed the questions away from ‘‘that hard stuff,’ so that when Crawford was asked to pose for a picture, the star insisted Alsop pose with her.

And then there’s tne picture of Carol Channing.

“This lady -[ wasn’t crazy about,” s: Says, ‘Alsop, her Doris Orr cat, Max, jumping on to the table and curling up on Joan Crawford.

“Of all the people — and I’ve interviewed so many — there are three that | wasn’t keen on, and each one of them was a real star: Carol Channing, Johnny Carson, and Tony Bennett. t thought ‘Hey, they’re in the business, they'll give me a break or a story.’ But they

tinction

were very distant and hard to in- terview.””

It's the real people that Alsop most enjoyed writing about. .

A series on night people saw her at ‘an all-night diner (“! made $6.78 in tips; | was so proud”), dancing. with Dal Richards, and walking. the beat with skid-row cop W' istling Bernie Smith. ,

And it’s the series on.women’s tights and family law that earned her. the YWCA’s Woman of

. Distinction Award in 1987.

Yet it’s the fashion reporting that took her to Paris, Milan, Tokyo,

See Candlelight page 44

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