Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 12

BEST COPY AVAILABLE B2 THE EDMONTON JOURNAL, Saturday, January 14. 1989 CityAlberta Environmentalists back water price hike Western hero says films were just a well-paying job Life spent riding celluloid range Ml (B SB duf nun be fc3 Colorful characters from Aiberta 's past -VI by Bob Giaour By SCOTT McKEEN Journal Staff liter An Edmonton environmental group is hoping Edmontonians will swallow an increase in utility rates to ensure safe drinking water. Toxics Watch will try to convince the public that the water intake for the Rossdale Treatment plant should be moved soon, and with public money. The group's spokesman, Ray Rasmussen, estimates homeowners will only have to pay $1.50 to S2 more each month to pay for the relocation of the intake. Relocating the intake upstream of storm sewer outlets on the North Saskatchewan River was the major recommendation of a study into Edmonton's dnnking ater in 1986.

Council has decided to delay the project, estimated to cost 596.7 million, until the cost of repairing northeast Edmonton sewer problems is known. That figure should be known in March. That decision angered Dr. Steve Hrudey, the man who headed the 1986 study. He said Edmonton's water supply is vulnerable to toxic and cancer-causing chemicals, as well as bacteria, as long as the Rossdale intake is downstream from storm sewer outlets.

This week. Aid. Lance White reversed his previous stand on the water intake matter, agreeing with Hrudey. White said the project should be speeded up as it involves a basic "quality of life issue. Rasmussen agrees, but says the public has to be convinced also of the dangers posed by the present Rossdale system.

"We did our homework on this, and as far as I'm concerned that (1986) study states that our water isn't safe, said Rasmussen. He concedes council is in a tough position to proceed with the relocation because it will be criticized for the required rate increase. But if the public is convinced cf the need for the project, and shows agreement for a water rate increase, council can be convinced, said Rasmussen. "Right now they (council members) are damned if they do and damned if they don't go ahead." "We want to make it so they'll be praised if they do and damned if they don't proceed, he said. Rasmussen said the project's estimated pricetag includes $30 million in interest costs.

If citizens agree to a water rate hike immediately, those charges could be reduced, he said. REGISTERING NOW FOR PROGRAMS COMMENCING FEB. 1, 1939 He also played bit pans at Paramount in 1939, becoming the studio's leading man for many screen tests of female hopefuls. "The most exciting thing I did in my whole career was a screen test with Ingrid Berman for For Whom the Bell Tolls," the late actor once said. "She was just remarkable.

But Gary Cooper got the part Cameron worked as a stun Lm an and double for Buck Jones, a popular cowboy movie star, in the western serial Riders of Death Valley in 1941. He was also a stand-in for actor Fred McMurray, whom he slightly resembled, and played opposite mm in a 1942 movie. Cameron gradually moved into the lead in Westerns. He switched to Republic, an action studio, and in 1943 starred as Rex Bennett, a Second World War U.S. undercover agent fighting Nazis and Japanese, in two, 15-epi-sode Saturday afternoon serials.

Universal signed him as its new cowboy star. In three of his westerns, he acted with Canadian-born Yvonne de Carlo of Vancouver. After the war, Cameron worked for at least a half dozen Hollywood studios. "In the old Hollywood, acting was fun," he recalled. "The atmosphere was looser.

We used to play practical jokes on each other "Once I went with a film crew into the High Sierras Afti-r I finished my part, I fell asleep under a tree When I woke up, I was all alone the whole company had packed up and gone, leaving rue there I 'pent half the night trying to hitch a ride back to Los Angeles. Yep. those were the good old days!" but there was also a lot of work We used to do 25 paiies of d1 1-logue and three or four f'i (lights a day when we made those films. We'd mike a whole movie in eiaht davs, and today some of these actors say. 'Oh, two pages of dialogue, I can't possibly do that in one In 1949, Camerson visited southern Alberta to attend Fort Ma-cleod's 75th anniversary celebrations.

He met Dan Boyle, president cf the Calgary Stampede. Art Evans, a retired Journal columnist, spotted Cameron in Edmonton as the actor was passing through on the flight from Los Ar.aeles to By BOB GILMOUR Journal Staff Writer His name was Rod Cameron. He was big sis feet four. And bigger than life a Western movie hero who rode the celluloid range. A generation of hero-worshipping kids watched him ride across the silver screen in the 1940s and 1950s.

Handsome and strongly-built with broad shoulders and dark hair, the lanky, square-jawcJ Albertan looked like former corruc strip detective Dick Tracy. His rugged, leathery good looks and deep voice made him an ideal hero of Western movies. He made more than 140 Hollywood movies during his 38-year acting career. Many were second-feature or B-Westerns "oaters, horse operas, or shoo t-em-up but they thrilled the kids at the Saturday matinees. Kids in Edmonton and across North America cheered, whistled and whooped for Cameron and the other good-guy heroes in a brand of action-packed movies later gunned down by television and sent to Boot Hill The easy-going actor also played many good-humored men in action roles in movies and serials at Universal and Republic studios in the 1940s and 1950s.

He portrayed policemen, government secret service agents and private investigators. Turned down for a career in the RCMP because of a slight limp, his agents claimed, he became a Moun-tie in reel life. He played one in 1940 in Cecil B. de Milk's Northwest Mounted Police, about Canada's Riel Rebellion. Cameron was born Dec.

7, 1912. in Calgary as Rod Cox. His father, Robert Nathan Cox, was a mechanical engineer who dealt in mining equipment with his une'e in the Peace River district. When he was two, the family moved to Toronto. After his father died in 1925, he moved with mother and younger sister to the U.S., where he finished high school and acted in a drama club.

As a young man, he worked in construction, helping build tunnels in New York and later Los Angeles, where he moved in the 1930s. He then became a fertilizer salesman, but the company folded. In 1939, he began doing bit roles in B-pictures, and changed his name from Cox to Cameron. One of his first bit parts was a scene at Wamer Bros, with superstar Bette Davis in The Old Maid. Glowing with pride, he invited all his friends and family to the premiere only to find the director had chopped the scene from the movie.

Chambers By F.D STRUZIK Journal Staff Writer Parks Canada has so far flatly rejected a proposal to extend the David Thompson Highway through Banff National Park, says a coalition of central Alberta chambers of commerce. But Pat Henry, executive director of the Red Deer chamber, says he's confident the Alberta caucus in Ot PL0S1A PROGRAM! He also starred in three non-western TV series. One was Bart Grant, City Detective (1953-55), in which he played a New York police investigator. In 1953, the half-hour show was syndicated to 171 television stations, a record for the time. In 1957, he starred in State Trooper, playing Nevada state police trooper Rod Blake.

It ran for 104 episodes over three years. In 1959, he starred in a third TV series called Coronado 9, playing Dan Adams, a retired naval intelligence officer turned private investigator. He returned to Alberta with his wife in June 1959 and visited his Stampede friend, Boyle, at his summer home in Waterton. Cameron, who also holidayed in Banff, Lake Louise and Jasper, was made an honorary chief of the Blood Indians, and called Calf Chief. In I960, he fuelled the Hollywood gossip factory by divorcing his second wife and marrying her mother, who was a few years older than he.

They kept the mamage secret for more than a year while he appeared in several segments of the Laramie TV series. In the late 1960s, he as back in Canada again, for a Canadian TV show called Star Hunt, which fea tured rising U.S. singer Glen Camp- -bell. In 1965, he played the lead in the movie Requiem for a Gunfight- er, which starred several old cowboy stars such as Bob Steele, Johnny Mack Brown, Edmund Cobb, Ray- mond Hatton and Lane Chandler. It was also the last appearance for one of the greatest.

Col. Tim McCoy. Handsome and still active in his 60s, Cameron continued to act into the 1970s in movies and television. From 1954 to 1972, he was in many TV serials including Laramie, Tales of Wells Fargo, the Loneita c-l i i uung mow, rerry Mason, nurne Law. Bonanza, Adam-12 and Alias Smith Jones.

He was also the star of his own comic book. I lis last movie was in 1978. Irreverent and unpretentious, Cameron talked about movie-making as if it were just a better-paying version of his one-time job as a fertilizer salesman. "I never had any great artistic integrity about the pictures I made. It as a job and I did what I as told." Malone was unavailable for comment Friday.

While new national parks legislation prohibits further road construction through Banff, Henry said "nothing is engraved in stone." He said the road is essential to encourage more tourism in central and northern Alberta. Environmental groups and opposition parties are firmly against any further development of the national parks. They say the province should look to other projects outside the national park boundaries if they want more tourists to come to Alberta. i 4 4f i Rod Cameron, Western hero it was a job, not art, be said Lethbndge. Cameron was strolling downtown beside the old Royal George Hotel on 101st Street.

'T recognized him from the movies" even though he wasn't wearing cowboy clothes, says Evans. He called the actor by name, "and he was surprised. I said, 'Let's go have a coffee' and he said, 'Let's go have a beer and we had a couple beers. And he paid." During dieir chat, Cameron told Evans he hadn't ridden a horse until he went to Hollywood. He returned to Alberta in May 1950 and visited Calgary, stopping first in Fort Macleod to pick up a beaded buckskin outfit given him for attending the previous year's celebration.

Cameron was maTied three times. After his second marriage in 1950, he bought a home in Hoily-ood, and indulged his hobby of wood carving. He also played toogie-wwgie. Cameron, who has a grown daughter by a first marriage, amazed some Hollywood residents by becoming a serious Bible student and getting involved in juvenile welfare at various boys' schools and orphanages, especially St. Mary's School for Indian Children.

In 1952, he went to India to film The Jungle and later made westerns in Spain. Germany and Italy. minister Tom McMillan) was defeated in the election. But I think we can get the support we need. It's just going to take a lot of work." Henry said a sub-committee of the coaljtion plans to meet with Tory caucus members individually to pursue the issue.

Discussions with the province have already taken place and Henry said Alberta is solidly behind the proposal "Essentialiy, Alberta's built its part of the highway," he said. "Now we have to convince B.C. and Parks Canada." Alberta caucus chairman Arnold YAMAHA FOLK GUITAR FG-405 BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION LEGAL SECRETARY MEDICAL-DENTAL SECRETARY GENERAL SECRETARY CLERK TYPIST Financial assistance or sponsorship from Provincial Government may be available. Must apply early. EDMONTON'S DOWNTOWN COUCCE 3lBBRTa CDLLEBB 10041-101 STREET, EDMONTON.

ALBERTA TSJ 0S3 TELEPHONE 423-18M confident MPs back road to Banff (17 SEMI JNNUAL GUITAR SALEn CLEARANC r- t-A IS SALE 169 ALL YAMAHA ACCOUSTIC ELECTRIC GUITARS UP TO 40 0 OFF YAMAHA ETERNA CLASSICAL EC-13 SALE $119 tawa will unanimously back the idea and push it at the ministerial level. About a dozen chambers have joined tht" coalition. "A year ago, we had unanimous support from the Alberta caucus and they made representation for us at the ministerial level," Henry said in a telephone interview. "There are a lot of new faces in caucus now and the old environment at the 41st ANNUAL SHRINE CIRCUS Set. Sun.

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