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ZA Family Tradition for 128 Years" PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, December 13, 1994 - 3 Cow PORT PERRY STAR €] MMUNITY "The divine Miss W. Star of stage and screen, now in a supermarket near you! By Cathy Olliffe Port Perry Star That face! You've seen that face before, somewhere, maybe in the church choir (no, that's not it); maybe at your kid's school (no, that's definitely not it). You can't place her, but you know you have seen that face before. That incredible face, with the sparkling, dark eyes, almost hidden by heavy lids one moment, surprisingly round and animated the next. You watch her pilot her shopping cart down the aisles of your local supermarket, or mail a letter at the post office, and the hamsters on the treadmill of your brain are working overtime, trying to figure out where you might have seen this woman before. And then it finally comes to you, one night after supper when you're slumped on the couch, recovering from too much Hamburger Helper, clicker in hand, getting one-in-10 answers right on Jeopardy...a TV commercial comes on and it's an elevator filled with people. A young guy at the front of the elevator is listening to a radio station on his headphones, and he's laughing and laughing. Loudly. The laughter is contagious, but the other people in the elevator don't seem to think so: they look at each other and roll their eyes, making silent tsk-tsk noises and shaking their heads. The guy continues laughing, louder and louder, until -- have you ever heard the old expression, "I laughed so hard I wet my pants?" Well, that's exactly what the guy did. The people in the elevator are appalled, particularly, this one grandmotherly type, plump, with a raft of white curls, and curiously, heavily-lidded eyes. "That's HER!" The lady in the supermarket! That's where you've seen her before, on TV. The infamous 'elevator' commercial for a Toronto radio station was actually cancelled shortly after it appeared on TV, after a group representing people with bladder control pro- blems complained. Never mind, 'that face' can still be seen in a plethora of commercials, a multitude of tele- vision series and a handful of feature films (in- cluding a new release called 'Trapped In Paradise', starring Nicholas Cage, Dana Carvey "and Jon Lovitz). She is also an award-winning stage actress, with countless community thea- tre performances to her credit. She is, very possibly, the most famous person living in Scugog Township. She is 'The Divine Miss W'. She is Bunty Webb. With her broad humor, her warm British accent and her hearty, omniprescent laugh, especially in England," Bunty says with a chuckle. Perhaps that's why she has lost the accent and now sounds just as British as the folks on Coronation Street. In 1955, Bunty and a girlfriend decided they would embark on a two-year adventure exploring Canada. "We were going to travel across Canada and down through the States," she says. But almost immediately after her arrival in Canada, she met Ron, who was also Markham newspaper, looking for people interested in starting a local drama group. Right away, she became involved, and as a matter of fact, she is one of only two founding members (the other is Lillian Sievenan) still involved with Markham Little Theatre. Now, of course, Markham Little Theatre has its own magnificent theatre, where all kinds of plays, concerts and television shows are seen and filmed (including Super Dave Osborne). : But when the theatre was in its infancy, the plays were acted out at local schools, with the smallest budgets and most rudimentary materials. Bunty actually misses those 'high school' days and while she admires Markham's slick new facil- ities, she prefers communi- ty theatre styled the way it is with Port Perry's Borelians. "I love the Town Hall," she enthuses. "It's pokey backstage, with dressing rooms that are hardly big enough...that's community theatre to me." Her most treasured award, the ACT-CO award for Best Performance, was Markham District High School stage. She played a char lady in 'Busybody', and had the audience roar- ing with laughter over her antics. In other years, the Best Performance award was divided into male and female performers, but in that year, there was only one award -- and Bunty won it. Over the years, Bunty has played a housekeeper many, many times. "I'm always somebody's cleaning lady," she pre- tends to grouse. "Mean- while, my own house isn't clean enough for a clean- ing lady. I'd have to clean it first." (This isn't true. Sometimes when actress Bunty Webb is out and about she catches people staring "I did a CATHY OLLIFFE / PORT PERRY STAR HL€T house is spotless.) Hitchcock Bunty Webb seems to have stepped right out of at her -- they recognize her familiar face but aren't sure where they know her from. Presents and 1 was an old episode of The Pig 'n Whistle. Feathered Bunty compares the situation to a story Jack Benny used to tell, but unlike Mr. Benny, Sherlock Holmes' house- boas and outrageous jewellery seem to belong Bunty says, "Nobody's ever said to me, didn't you used to be Bunty Webb?" on her, but when she comes to the door of her keeper. I did a Twilight Zone and I was Ted Scugog Island home, she is wearing a simple t-shirt, emblazoned with the logo of her last Borelians play, Shado Walkers. She welcomes her visitor, yet another in a long line of reporters, fusses over coffee, and asks, for the ump- teenth time, "Is this really necessary?" Lately, there have been many scribes darkening the Webb's Island doorway, each one hoping to pen the defi- nitive 'story of Bunty'. "People are starting to wonder," she says. "People are going to think I'm phoning up newspapers, asking for publicity." She's not. If anything, she is tempted to say no to this latest request for an interview. But one senses she finds the word 'no' difficult to get her mouth around. At 63, she has never said no to a piece of acting work. Although there was one icy day a couple of weeks ago, when she woke up at 4 a.m. and battled slippery roads to go to a movie set (the film is called 'Johnny and Clyde'), where five lemon meringe pies were waiting to be thrown in her face. "I was halfway there and I thought, why am I doing this?" Bunty has been 'doing this' (acting) since she was a teenager. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, she moved with her family to northeast England, where she discovered a local drama group in Whitley Bay. "There aren't too many parts for Scottish accents, English. "My family said, 'You had to travel 3,000 miles just to marry an Englishman?" Her father, who recently passed away at age 94, never could believe his daugh- ter's trip to Canada was anything other than tempo- rary. When he came to Port Perry to celebrate his 90th birthday, he asked Bunty, "Do you think you'll stay in Canada, then?" When they were newlyweds, the Webbs settled in the Erindale Woodlands area, northwest of Toronto. Before long, Ron had an opportunity to work in Scarborough, so they packed up and moved to Markham. There was no drama group in Erindale when Bunty lived there, and there was none in Markham either. Although being a Guide leader kept her busy (she has been involved in the Guiding movement her whole life, starting as a Brownie, and spending 26 years as a lead- er and District Commissioner), she was craving a chance to get back into community theatre. She credits her father with instilling her with an interest in theatre. "My Dad ran a concert party in England," she says, referring to a travelling variety show featuring skits, songs and dancing. "When I was growing up, I saw them on stage and knew I wanted to do that too," she recalls. "I think I came by it honestly." It was in the late 1960s that she saw an ad in the Shackleford's housekeeper. Then I did a film where I played Jason Robard's house- keeper." And for five episodes of CBC's Street Legal, she played Cynthia Dale's housekeeper. Bunty says Miss Dale is totally unlike her scheming, bitchy 'Olivia' character. "She was very sweet, very nice." Just recently, she auditioned for a part in Miss Dale's upcoming series for CTV, called 'Taking the Falls'. She doesn't know if she has the part yet, but if she does, it will likely mean more filming in Niagara Falls, not too far away from the Niagara-on-the-Lake location where 'Trapped In Paradise' was filmed. Work was done last winter, during some of the coldest, bitterest, most bone-chilling weather Ontario has seen for a long time. She played one of two, "unmarried, spin- sterish sisters", who had to rescue Dana Carvey's char- acter out of the river. She says Carvey and Jon Lovitz (of Saturday Night Live) were just wild, always joking, always playing off one another, always fun. Co-star Nicholas Cage, on the other hand, was shy, a trait she says many performers share. She has met many celebrities over her years in the business, an aspect of her work she enjoys. Her life as a professional actress began one day when "someone sug- gested, why aren't you doing this for money. It was my Turnto Page 13 earned by Bunty on the