Honest Ed Mirvish dies in Toronto hospital

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Ed Mirvish, the colourful entrepreneur best known for his bargain store Honest Ed's at Yonge and Bloor died early this morning at St. Michael's Hospital.

He was born on July 24 1914 in Colonial Beach, Virginia. The family moved in 1923 to Toronto where his father David bought a grocery store on Dundas Street. They lived in a modest apartment above the stores. When his father died, Ed, who was 15 years old at the time, stopped going to school to run the store and to take care of his family.

The grocery store didn't do very well, so Ed closed it and reopened it as a dry cleaner. In 1941, he married radio singer Anne Macklin. Their only child, David, came four years later.

Real success came when he set up his bargain store at Bloor and Bathurst, selling all types of odds and ends with prices as low as a penny. That was in 1948. The store was a huge success and brought in millions of dollars a year.

The store, with its dazzling lights quickly became one of the most famous landmarks in Toronto and it is famous the world over as one of its best-known touristic attractions.

Ed Mirvish was a master of public relations, trying to get free publicity whenever he could, by bringing elephants to the store and even hiring protesters to picket his store.

His best known charitable event is no doubts his Christmas turkey giveaway. Each years, hundreds of people line up for hours at Honest Ed's to get one of 10,000 pounds worth of turkeys and fruitcakes he is giving away. Since his 75th birthday, Ed Mirvish has held a birthday party every year next to the store with entertainment, free food and rides.

After getting pneumonia in 2003, he retired from public life. His one major appearance since then was the party he organized in July 2005. The whole city was invited.

In 1962, he bought the 1907 Royal Alexandra Theatre on King Street West, saving it from demolition and restoring it to its former glory. He invested half a million dollars in the project. The first show played in the theatre was a production of Saturday Night Fever.

Attempting to keep the theatre afloat and profitable, he opened several restaurants in the neighbourhood. The first was Old Ed's Warehouse. It offered only one meal, roast beef, to keep the costs low. In the following years, other restaurants followed, such as Ed's Chinese, Ed's Folly, Ed's Italian Restaurant and Ed's Seafood. None of them still exist.

Ed Mirvish built the Princess of Wales Theatre in 1993, the largest new theatre in Canada in 30 years, running such shows as Mamma Mia, Miss Saigon, The Lion King and The Producers.

Ed also bought and restored the Old Vic in London, England.

During an interview, one of many, CityTV's Gord Martineau once asked Ed Mirvish what he would like to have written on his tombstone. He answered that tombstones and cemeteries were not his thing and that he would like to have a throne set up in the middle of Honest Ed's. A man should be sitting on the throne turning an hourglass containing his cremated remains so that the employees would say that Ed is still running.

Many people have fond memories of Honest Ed's. I am one of them. I used a picture taken in his store as an illustration for my book on ActiveX programming, and the first set of curtains for my apartment came from there. As a Belgian, I was once amazed to find Belgian chocolates at Honest Ed's. They were made in a factory located in my native Brugge.