WEINTRAUB, William 1926-

PERSONAL: Born February 19, 1926, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; son of Louis and Mina (Blumer) Weintraub; married Magda Landau, November, 26,1967. Education: McGill University, B.A., 1947.

ADDRESSES: Home—3280 Ridgewood Avenue, Westmount, Quebec H3Y 3J4, Canada.

CAREER: Film producer, scriptwriter, novelist. Montreal Gazette, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, reporter, 1947-50; Weekend Magazine, Montreal, Quebec, copy editor, 1951-55; freelance writer, beginning 1955. National Film Board, producer, 1965-86; director, National Film Board studio, Nairobi, Kenya, 1975-76; director of English programming, 1976-78; has written and produced over 100 documentary films. Member of international jury, Cracow Film Festival, Poland, 1973; member of Canadian delegation visiting film industry in China, 1977; member of board of directors, Quebec council for the diffusion of cinema, 1971.

AWARDS, HONORS: Delegate to UNESCO Conference on Films and Television, Morocco, 1955; Canadian Council Senior Arts Fellowship, 1962.

WRITINGS:

Why Rock the Boat: A Novel, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1961.

The Underdogs, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1979.

City Unique: Montreal Days and Nights in the 1940s and '50s, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1996.

The Underdogs: A Play, Just For Laughs Press/Robert Davies Multimedia Publishers (Westmount, Quebec, Canada), 1998.

Getting Started: A Memoir of the 1950s; With Letters from Mordecai Richler, Mavis Gallant, and Brian Moore, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2001.

Author of scripts and commentaries for more than seventy-five productions by the National Film Board of Canada. Director and writer of The Rise and Fall of English Montreal, a documentary, 1993.

SIDELIGHTS: William Weintraub has written and produced, and/or directed over 100 documentary films. He is also the author of several books.

Why Rock the Boat is a comic novel satirizing the Montreal Gazette, where he worked as a young reporter. National Post reviewer Robert Fulford wrote, "Satire describing such a specific world usually dies young, but Why Rock the Boat reads well today. Seldom, before or since, has boredom been made so funny."

After working in journalism, Weintraub became interested in the new medium of television, took a two-week course in television scriptwriting and began working for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation only three months after it was formed. He then worked as a freelance writer, and wrote short stories before becoming interested in film. In 1965, Weintraub began working for Canada's National Film Board; his relationship with them would last for several decades.

In City Unique: Montreal Days and Nights in the 1940s and '50s, Weintraub tells his own coming-ofage story. The book remained on Canadian best-seller lists for a year. In Maclean's, Anthony Wilson-Smith wrote that the book offered "a loving but clear-eyed look at the city" and noted that Weintraub's Montreal is "a wide-open, exuberant metropolis that dared to be many things, including great, and quite often succeeded." In Canadian Geographic, Joel Yanofsky commented that Weintraub "has a way with anecdotes and City Unique is packed with them, all lovingly told." Mike Kennedy wrote in the Financial Post that the book was "well-researched, entertaining," and that it "candidly portrays the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of two magical, almost unforgettable decades."

In Getting Started: A Memoir of the 1950s; With Letters from Mordecai Richler, Mavis Gallant, and Brian Moore, Weintraub describes how he and his friends, who later became noted Canadian writers, all dreamed of pursuing a life of writing and adventure while supporting themselves by working for various magazines and newspapers. In the McGill News, Jason Fowler praised Weintraub's use of amusing anecdotes, as well as his honest portrayal of his youthful insecurities about writing and his future. In addition, Fowler noted, the book "contains some fascinating bits of social history." In the Montreal Review of Books, Denis Sampson wrote, "The most extraordinary thing revealed in this book is the intimacy and solidity of the writers' friendships through tumultuous years of growing international recognition and success … displacement … and upheavals in personal lives."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Books in Canada, February, 1979, review of The Underdogs, p. 17; April, 1997, review of City Unique: Montreal Days and Nights in the 1940s and '50s, p. 16.

Canadian Book Review Annual, Volume 28, 1997, review of City Unique, p. 366.

Canadian Geographic, January-February, 1997, Joel Yanofsky, review of City Unique, p. 78.

Financial Post, April 19, 1997, Mike Kennedy, review of City Unique, p. 24.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), September 22, 2001, review of Getting Started: A Memoir of the 1950s; With Letters from Mordecai Richler, Mavis Gallant, and Brian Moore, p. D4; November 24, 2001, review of Getting Started, p. D21.

Maclean's, February 26, 1979, review of The Underdogs, p. 57; March 25, 1996, p. 14; February 17, 1997, Anthony Wilson-Smith, review of City Unique, p. 75.

McGill News, winter, 2001-2002, Jason Fowler, review of Getting Started.

Montreal Review of Books, fall-winter, 2001-2002, Denis Sampson, review of Getting Started.

National Post, October 2, 2001.

Quill & Quire, December, 1996, review of City Unique, p. 30; February, 1997, review of City Unique, p. 50; September, 2001, review of Getting Started, p. 50.