Maggie Trudeau At The El Mo
Maggie Trudeau At The El Mo
Plus a new Love Stories of St. James tour, a panel at Fan Expo, and more...
With the recent news Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau are separating after eighteen years of marriage, I thought I’d share a chapter from The Toronto Book of Love: the story of his parents’ own separation and one of the most infamously scandalous nights in Toronto history…
It casts a colourful glow on a grey sidewalk on the edge of Chinatown, a bright beacon in the night. It’s one of the most iconic signs in Toronto: a neon palm tree topped by a crescent moon. Along the trunk shine the words that have been keeping watch over this stretch of Spadina Avenue since the 1940s: El Mocambo. The club has been a staple of the city’s nightlife for decades — with a history that stretches back even further than that. The building first opened as a music venue in the 1850s and is said to have given shelter to some of those who escaped slavery along the Underground Railroad. It was reborn as the El Mocambo in the wake of the Second World War, when bars and taverns were allowed to serve hard liquor for the first time since Prohibition. It became one of the city’s first cocktail bars, classy enough to birth stories of Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly stopping by for a drink. When the city lifted a ban on live music at cocktail bars — though singing along was still strictly forbidden — the “El Mo” took advantage. Over the next couple of decades, it played host to a German dance club, a strip tease act, and blues legends like Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy. By the late 1970s, it had earned a reputation for supporting Toronto’s up-and-coming young rock groups.
The band playing the El Mocambo on a rainy March night in 1977 seemed to be just another one of those local acts. No one had ever heard of The Cockroaches. But the name was a ruse, a cover story to hide the fact that that night the El Mo was playing host to one of the biggest rock bands in the world.
The Rolling Stones were having a very rough week. They had come to Toronto to record a live album, but things had been thrown into chaos from the moment they arrived. The band’s guitarist, Keith Richards, had brought his son and his common-law wife along with him — as well as her twenty-eight pieces of luggage. Inside those bags, customs officials found ten grams of hashish and a spoon coated with traces of heroin. Her arrest was shortly followed by Richards’. When the RCMP showed up at the Harbour Castle hotel on the waterfront, where the band was staying, they found about four thousand dollars’ worth of heroin in the guitarist’s bathroom. Plus, some cocaine. “The Mounties always get their man,” Rolling Stone magazine wrote, “and they damn sure have him.”
Richards would eventually be let off with a light sentence: a promise to play a charity show. But at the time, of course, no one knew that was going to happen. Richards was facing a potential life sentence. For a while, it seemed as if The Rolling Stones might be done for good.
But that damp night in Chinatown, a limousine pulled up outside the El Mocambo. Out stepped the band’s legendary front man: Mick Jagger. For now, at least, the Stones were carrying on, going ahead with their plan to play a pair of secret shows at the El Mo, their first club gigs in fourteen years, to be recorded for their Love You Live album. Even as the rumours swirled and the drug scandal made headlines around the world, The Rolling Stones were going to keep the party going.
And there, stepping out of the limousine right behind Mick Jagger, came the wife of the prime minister of Canada.
It was during a Christmas in Tahiti that Margaret Sinclair first met the man she was going to marry. She was there on holiday with her family, enjoying the green palm trees, white sands, and a bronzed Frenchman named Yves — the grandson of one of the founders of Club Med. But one day, as she relaxed on a raft, gently bobbing in the bay, another man swam over to join her for a while. He was much older than she was: she was nineteen; he was forty-eight. But she did like the look of his legs. There under the bright Tahitian sun, they talked about Plato, the history of the Roman Empire, and whether existence was just an illusion. He was a politician; she was the daughter of a former cabinet minister. They got along well enough that they spent some more time together, snorkelling through the waters of the South Pacific, before returning to their regular lives back home in Canada. She didn’t think much of it: he was much too old and much too square for an aspiring hippie like her. But for his part, he was immediately smitten. At breakfast one day, while she ate at the far end of the table, he confided to his friends. “If I ever marry,” he told them, “she’s the one.”
It would be a while before they met again. He’d been in Tahiti pondering one of the biggest decisions of his life: whether to run for the leadership of the federal Liberal Party. In just a few months, he’d be the prime minister of Canada. He was pretty busy. And so, a couple of years passed before Pierre Trudeau finally asked Margaret Sinclair out on a date.
By then, Trudeau had already begun to make his mark on Canada as one of the boldest and most controversial leaders the country has ever known. During his very first year as prime minister, he’d started to change the country’s legal approach to love. In 1969 his government decriminalized birth control, legalized some abortions, and decriminalized homosexual acts between men — as long as they were both twenty-one years old and behind closed doors. “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation,” Trudeau famously declared, echoing an editorial in the Globe and Mail. “What’s done in private between adults doesn’t concern the Criminal Code.” It was far from a complete legal acceptance of gay rights. But it was a major step forward in a place where men had once been threatened with death if they fell in love with another man. As Trudeau put it, “It has knocked down a lot of totems and overridden a lot of taboos.... It’s bringing the laws of the land up to contemporary society.”
Canada was changing, and Trudeau was leading that change. While some Canadians reviled him, he was a hero to many. Since Margaret Sinclair had last seen him, Trudeaumania had swept the country. The young, bachelor prime minister had the aura of a rock star. Sinclair might not have been completely sold on the idea of dating a man nearly three decades her senior, but it was hard to turn him down.
Pierre and Maggie had their first date in Vancouver, dining at a restaurant high atop Grouse Mountain as they talked about student revolutions and the time she’d spent living in Morocco. By the end of the night, she’d fallen hard. When he casually suggested she might be interested in a government job, she dropped everything and headed for Ottawa. They began dating on and off at first; Pierre kept seeing a few other people, including Barbra Streisand; there were even rumours he’d proposed to the movie star. But he and Margaret were becoming closer and closer: having dinner together at 24 Sussex, hiking and skiing at the prime minister’s retreat on Harrington Lake, and spending time at his cabin in the Laurentians. They got engaged under the palm trees of the Bahamas, during a vacation spent diving through the blue waters and living in a ramshackle hut on the beach.
The prime minister almost missed their wedding. He had to talk a ground crew into letting him fly through one of the worst blizzards Ottawa had seen in years. But he finally arrived at the little church in North Vancouver — only half an hour late. They were married as the setting sun streamed in through the windows, surrounded by yellow candles and garlands of spring flowers.
It was a small, private event, with only about a dozen guests. They didn’t tell the press. But when news broke, they were suddenly the most popular husband and wife in Canada. “We were the golden couple ... and everyone seemed to love us,” Margaret Trudeau would later remember. To the public, their marriage had all the allure of a fairy-tale romance, a glamorous love affair that resonated with Canadians who could feel their country finally coming into its own. And that impression only got stronger when each of their first two children were born on Christmas Day. Baby Justin was destined to become prime minister himself when he grew up. One newspaper called them “The World’s Most Glamorous First Family.”
But, like so many fairy tales, this one wouldn’t have a happy ending.
The first public sign of trouble came on the night of their sixth anniversary. Instead of celebrating together, the prime minister and his wife were hundreds of kilometres apart. Pierre was in Ottawa. And Maggie? Well, she was in Toronto, climbing out of Mick Jagger’s limousine outside the El Mocambo. Instead of spending her wedding anniversary having a romantic dinner with her husband, she would spend the entire night in a grimy club in Chinatown partying with a rock band whose guitarist was facing a possible life sentence for heroin possession. And the next night, too. She’d stay up until five in the morning, talking, playing dice, and smoking drugs with the band in her hotel room.
Maggie Trudeau had always been a free spirit, uncomfortable with the traditional role she was expected to play as the prime minister’s wife. Over the course of the 1970s, controversy seemed to follow her wherever she went. She smoked pot, drank, had an affair with Ted Kennedy, passed out at the Louvre, wore a scandalously short dress to the White House, and did peyote and broke into song at a state dinner in Venezuela. The list went on and on. “Margaret Trudeau did it again,” was the lede on the front page of the Globe and Mail the day after the peyote state dinner. It was far from an isolated incident. One day, many years later, she would talk openly about the truth behind those scandalous stories: she’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She would eventually become an advocate for mental health. “I wince when I look back at this really stupid, shameful behaviour,” she would remember in her autobiography. “I was so lonely. I was so sad.”
The headlines from her nights with The Rolling Stones were especially brutal, made all the more shocking by Keith Richards’ arrest. “SEX ORGY IN PRIME MINISTER’S WIFE’S SUITE,” one newspaper cried. Rumours she’d slept with Mick Jagger were everywhere. (In fact, she spent the night with guitarist Ron Wood.) And there would be more headlines to come when she turned up a few days later, living with a princess in New York City, attending the ballet with Mikhail Baryshnikov. And then again when she was photographed dancing at the notorious disco Studio 54 on the night her husband lost the next election. Some even worried her behaviour was going to cost him his career, and — in an era of rising Quebec separatism — that it would lead not just to the breakup of her marriage, but to the breakup of Canada as well.
But the truth was that their marriage had been on the rocks for years, and had long been coming to an end. “I see now with clarity,” she wrote many years later, “how opposites and contradictions can coexist in a human being, how a generous man can also be tight-fisted, how a husband can say adorable things one minute and hard things the next, how a sweet, sweet husband can turn on his wife.”
Pierre Trudeau could be kind and charming, but he could also be mean, distant, and cheap. She felt isolated and controlled, like she didn’t have a voice. “He literally wanted me barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.” He might have believed, intellectually, in gender equality, but, as she remembered it, “it was very hard for him to allow that freedom to me or to any women in his life.” For years, he kept her from going back to school or even volunteering for charity. And the age difference was a problem too. “He thought that by bullying me he could turn me into the perfect wife — in the way that a father might bully a recalcitrant teenager. Unfortunately, Pierre was not my father; he was my husband.” And as prime minister, he was so busy that even their love life had to be tightly scheduled. “Reason over passion,” was his favourite phrase.
They’d fallen out of love in 1974. And while there were still some good times, things had pretty much fallen apart. “The day came when I started to hate Pierre,” she wrote later, “and I knew that if I didn’t leave, I would go insane.” The morning of their sixth wedding anniversary, just hours before Maggie turned up at the El Mocambo, the Trudeaus agreed to separate. That weekend, she wrote an entry in her diary: “March 6. Toronto. Done. I have left Pierre and the children in Ottawa and I am heading out into the world to seek my fortune. Either it will work or it won’t.”
By then, divorces were much easier to get than they had been throughout Toronto’s history — and that was thanks to Pierre Trudeau. His government had loosened the restrictions as part of the same big bill that changed the laws around birth control, abortion, and homosexuality. Adultery was no longer the only acceptable reason to end a marriage; now there were multiple grounds for divorce — you could even just both agree to end it after spending three years apart. For the first time since Toronto had been founded, couples weren’t forced to stay together long after they’d fallen out of love. In 1984 the Trudeaus would make use of the new law, officially ending their marriage. Canada’s fairy-tale couple got divorced.
And so, that night with The Rolling Stones wasn’t a shocking betrayal of her marriage vows; it was Margaret Trudeau’s first step into a new life. She was on her way to New York, where she would begin to build an existence apart from her famous husband, and pursue a new profession: photography. That night in Chinatown, when The Rolling Stones took the stage in front of the El Mo’s palm tree–covered backdrop, she had her camera in her hand. As the legendary rock group belted out some of their most beloved tunes — songs that had helped fuel the social revolution of the sixties, songs that helped usher in new attitudes toward love, songs that were the soundtrack of Margaret Sinclair’s youth — she took photographs, hesitant at first, but more and more confident as the night wore on. “It was,” she wrote, “an exhilarating start to my new career.” She’d met her husband under the palm trees of Tahiti. She’d promised to marry him under the palm trees of the Bahamas. And now, under the palm trees of the El Mocambo, she was promising herself a new, better, happier life.
“It was a good night, and it was my new world.”
If you’d like more stories about the city’s romantic past, you can learn more about The Toronto Book of Love here. (I’ve edited the story just a touch from how it appears in the book, to clarify a couple of references to other chapters.)
You can also check out the new walking tour I’ll be leading this week:
Love Stories of St. James — A Free Walking Tour!
I’ve got a new walking tour coming up this week! And it’s free! Last year, the Friends of St. James Park were kind of enough to invite me to share a tour filled with grisly and gruesome stories from the neighbourhood’s past. This year, we’re following up with a new walk filled with true tales of love and romance.
We’ll spend the evening exploring stories about lustful affairs and shocking scandals, lifelong devotion and tragic heartbreak — all while tracing the ways in which Toronto’s attitudes toward love have evolved over the centuries.
When: Wednesday, August 23 at 7pm. It will last a bit over an hour.
Where: Meet at the pavilion in St. James Park (120 King Street East). The tour will end just a couple of blocks from where we started.
Price: Free!
I’ll Be On A Panel At Fan Expo!
I’ve got another big event coming up this week: On Saturday, I’ll be at Fan Expo! It’s best known, of course, for celebrating the worlds of comics, sci-fi, superheroes and horror — and featuring a line-up big stars from shows like Star Trek, Star Wars and Game of Thrones. But this year’s edition is also going to feature me!
I’ll be part of a true crime panel along with some of my fellow Dundurn authors: Nate Hendley, Steve Ryan, Susan Goldenberg and John Goddard. The event will be hosted by Emily Kellogg, co-creator of the Parkdale Haunt podcast. Tickets for Fan Expo aren’t cheap, but if you’re there make sure to come by and say hi!
A quick note of thanks to all of you who support The Toronto History Weekly as a paid subscriber… and a little reminder that if your credit card has expired since you first signed up, your subscription might have lapsed — it has happened to lots of long-term supporters and you might not have noticed. So if you’d like to continue your support, you might have to update your info.
The Toronto History Weekly is a ton of work and I’m only able to offer it for free thanks to those of you who support it with a few dollars a month. Only about 4% of readers have made the switch so far, which basically means that by offering a few dollars a month you’ll be giving the gift of Toronto history to 25 other people — in addition to getting perks like 10% off my online courses. You can make the switch by clicking right here:
QUICK LINKS
The best of everything else that’s new in Toronto’s past…
NEW STATUE NEWS — Just a couple of years ago, protesters toppled the statue of Queen Elizabeth II standing outside the provincial parliament building in Winnipeg. (It has since been repaired and replaced.) Now, Doug Ford’s Ontario government will be erecting a new statue of the same queen outside our own provincial parliament. Writing for TVO, Taylor C. Noakes calls it “a needlessly and deliberately provocative act… Whether the monument is regularly splattered in paint, defaced, or eventually toppled is anyone’s guess, but given the recent trend, it’s a safe bet this statue might not stand for too long.” Read more.
(I also shared a Twitter thread about the complicated histories behind the existing statues of Queen’s Park a few years ago. Read it.)
DARKNESS NEWS — It has somehow already been twenty years since the Great Blackout of 2003, so Jamie Bradburn takes a look back at that dark night for TVO. Read more.
MORE DARKNESS NEWS — …and he also wrote about the 1965 black out over at Spacing. Read more.
MORIYAMA NEWS — There’s a plan to redevelop much of the old Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre building, designed by celebrated architect Raymond Moriyama — an idea even those who recognize the urgency of the housing crisis have been denouncing. Andrew Palamarchuk wrote about it for The North York Mirror. Read more.
GROOVY GROVE NEWS — Nick Westoll takes a look at some of the heritage buildings around the Dufferin Grove neighbourhood, and the small businesses that have made them their home. Read more.
TORONTO HISTORY EVENTS
BLACK HISTORY UNBURIED WALKING TOUR
August 22 — 3pm — Meet at the Cabbagetown Farmers Market in Riverdale Park — Heritage Toronto
“Hear gravesite tales that feature notable Black community members buried at the Toronto Necropolis (one of the city’s oldest cemeteries), from freedom seekers to business leaders, from restaurateurs to Canada’s first Black postman.”
Free! ($10 donation suggested.)
THE 90th ANNIVERSARY OF THE CHRISTIE PITS RIOT: LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD
August 23 — 6:30pm — Bloor/Gladstone Library
“On August 16th 1933, close to 10,000 people took to the streets of Toronto in what is known as the Christie Pits riot. The riot was a response to the violence of the Nazi-supporting fascist 'Pit Gang,' who showed up at Christie Pits to terrorize a group of mostly working class Jewish and Italian baseball players. The players and their supporters defended themselves against the far-right attacks for 6 hours that night. The police did not stop the violence and in some accounts, actively supported the fascists. The riot took place amidst the rise of xenophobia and anti-Semitism in the city. Public spaces like beaches, parks, and ball diamonds acted as an arena for this violence.
“This year marks the 90th anniversary of these riots. Please join the Field of Dreamers Cooperative Softball Association for a discussion on the intersections of sport, politics, anti-Blackness, xenophobia, anti-queer/trans* hate, and anti-Semitism today. We will ask what these mean for access to public space and how we might continue to build movements for social justice in the places we play.”
Free!
BEING BLACK ON KING WALKING TOUR
August 24 — 6:30pm — Meet at Inglenook Community School — Heritage Toronto
“Discover the Black history that spans King Street East: from the first Underground Railroad site excavated in Canada, to one of Toronto’s first soul food restaurants whose name, design and atmosphere surfaced the history of slavery in the US and Canada, while also celebrating the community leaders who risked everything to ensure freedom.”
$9.85
STORIES OF SOUTH HILL WALKING TOUR
August 26 — 11am — Meet at Sir Winston Churchill Park — Heritage Toronto
“Wander through the leafy streets of South Hill, as we learn about the early 20th-century history and architecture of the neighbourhood. On this walk, we’ll explore community green spaces and hear stories of wealthy heiresses, war heroes and everyday families, and how they are linked to historically significant properties, including a collection of Eden Smith homes and a former Mothercraft hospital and residence.”
$9.85
ROOT OF THE TONGUE BY STEVEN BECKLY
Until August 27 — Wed to Sun, 11am to 5pm — Montgomery’s Inn
“Root of the Tongue is an exhibition of new artworks by Steven Beckly. Situated within Montgomery’s Inn, it consists of evocative images, sounds, and sculptural objects inspired by the Chung family, Chinese market gardeners who resided there in the 1940s. Considering their intimate roots to the site as well as the racism and xenophobia they faced during that time in Canada, Root of the Tongue explores the vegetable garden as fertile grounds for rituals of care and cultivation, ripe with symbolism and queerness.”
Free!
IT TAKES A VILLAGE WALKING TOUR
August 27 — 3pm — Meet at Barbara Hall Park — Heritage Toronto
“Discover the stories of Toronto’s 2SLGBTQ+ community — from advocacy fuelled by the Bathhouse Raids and the AIDS epidemic, to the belonging and celebration found at the City Park Apartments, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and St. Charles Tavern. Learn about efforts to strengthen the Church-Wellesley Village today and build the community for the future.”
$9.85
AUTHOR SERIES: MURDER IN RICHMOND HILL
September 7 — 7pm — Toronto’s First Post Office — 260 Adelaide Street East
“David Raymont will present on his editorial review of William Harrison’s Memoirs that focus on the true story of the Richmond Hill Murders of 1843; the historic event that would later inspire Margaret Atwood’s novel, “Alias Grace.” By focusing on contemporary accounts and using a variety of primary sources, Raymont uncovers an intriguing history full of twists and turns while presenting the social aspects of public opinion towards single parents and domestic work in 1840s Ontario. This event is part of our Annual Fall Author Series featuring four acclaimed Canadian historical fiction and non-fiction authors!”
$22.63 for non-members; $17.31 for members
BOOK LAUNCH — TORONTO MAYORS: A HISTORY OF THE CITY’S LEADERS
September 11 — 5:30pm — Old City Hall (Main Lobby)
“Join Mark Maloney in celebrating the launch of his new book, Toronto Mayors, in the Old City Hall. The first-ever look at all 65 Toronto mayors — the good, the bad, the colourful, the rogues, and the leaders — who have shaped the city… Toronto’s mayors have been curious, eccentric, or offbeat; others have been rebellious, swaggering, or alcoholic. Some were bigots, bullies, refugees, war heroes, social crusaders, or bon vivants; still others were inspiring, forward looking, or well ahead of their time.”
$40 (including a copy of the book)
SPACIOUSNESS
Various dates between Sept 13 Oct 7 — 7pm — Fort York
“Spaciousness is a compelling new theatrical experience that offers a tour like no other. Be transported to the past to encounter a multitude of characters who bring to life expansive stories of love, life, and loss during the War of 1812. Then be brought back to present day with a story of surviving conflict that encourages us towards peace. Traverse the grounds of Fort York and meet a cast of characters while travelling from one historic building to another, becoming immersed in stories of life during wartime.”
$30
WRITING CHANGE IN THE ANNEX WALKING TOUR
September 16 — 1pm — Spadina Road Library — Heritage Toronto
“Celebrated author Katherine Govier will explore the culture and vibrancy of the Annex neighbourhood of the 1970s and the 1980s, through the work of women writer’s who called the neighbourhood home. The presentation will explore the history and culture of the surrounding Annex neighbourhood and emphasize the important women writers and advocates who lived and worked in the neighbourhood, and how their work shaped not only Toronto but Canada.”
Free with registration!
TORONTO’S MAYORS FROM MUDDY YORK TO MEGA CITY
September 21 — 7:30pm — Montgomery’s Inn — The Etobicoke Historical Society
“Frank Nicholson will help us see the history of Toronto unfold through the careers of some of the sixty-five chief magistrates the city has had since being incorporated in 1834, including our first mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie, the leader of the Rebellion of 1837, and Mel Lastman, who oversaw the amalgamation of the city and its suburbs creating Megacity, our current city, twenty-five years ago.”
Exclusively for members of the Etobicoke Historical Society; an annual membership is $25.
MR. DRESSUP TO DEGRASSI: 42 YEARS OF LEGENDARY TORONTO KIDS TV
Until September 23 — Wed to Sat, 12pm to 6pm — 401 Richmond — Myseum
“The TV shows of your childhood hit closer to home than you might think. From 1952 to 1994, Toronto was a global player in a golden era of children’s television programming. For over four decades, our city brought together innovative thought leaders, passionate creators and unexpected collaborations – forming a corner of the television industry unlike any other in the world. Toronto etched itself into our collective consciousness with shows like Mr. Dressup, Today’s Special, The Friendly Giant, Polka Dot Door, Degrassi, and more. Journey through Toronto’s heyday of children’s TV shows in this playful exhibition.”
Free!