Jason Logan(I)
- Actor
- Stunts
- Additional Crew
Grampa Mike worked on the IH farm machinery assembly line in Chicago
before WWI. Opened a candy store in Chatham ON where he met the
beautiful Rosamund Moore. "Grandma Rosie" gave him three sons. An
Edward G. Robinson lookalike, Mike followed the lead of his countrymen
Spyros Skouras and Alexander Pantages into the vaudeville cinema show
business and built a handful of theatres including Sarnia's original
Imperial - half the size of Toronto's Pantages (now the Canon Theatre).
The 800-seat Imperial was swept away by a triple tornado in 1953. My
Great UncleJack Logan managed the Capital Vaudeville Theatre in London
ON - hometown of Jack Warner, Ned Sparks, Gene Lockhart, Aimee Semple
MacPherson and the Lombardo Brothers. That movie palace was also
demolished - this time by the wrecking ball. But the Sarnia Imperial
lives on having morphed into a Blue Water area community auditorium at
the former Famous Players/Paramount Capital , near the library and
museum and our 19th Century gabled brick house on Queen Street, my
Devine Street PS, where public grade-school classes integrated Native
children from Kettle Point, Ipperwash, Walpole Island & other First
Nations. And nearby Sarnia's Collegiate Institute where I was in school
with novelist Marian Engle and veteran news-anchor Tony Parsons. I
always knew I was destined for the stage after my high-school idol
("It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World") Soupy Sales drove the 60 miles from WXYZ
Detroit to emcee a talent show. Here was the hippest, funniest man
alive in 1954 making us laugh with a zanyness akin to Jerry Lewis or
Jim Carrey (both of whom I've worked with on films). The Soup was also
a hipster blues & jazz afficiando with a wild Mon-Fri midnight "Soupy's
On" variety show featuring stars like Dizzy Gillespie & Al Hibler &
T-Bone Walker sandwiched between his hilarious comedy sketches like
"Gaylord the Mississippi Gambler on the SS Kielbasa" featuring Flash
Gordon & the Polka Chips".