Alum publishes book on forgotten Canadian comedian

Billy Van is among the many hidden jewels of Canadian talent who are not celebrated enough today. If you grew up in the 60s and 70s, the name would be a recognizable one. Having been on most Canadians' television screens, young kids would have grown up admiring his greatness. 

Author Greg Oliver was one of those kids and still continues to see Billy Van as a comedic legend. In his biography, Who’s the Man? Billy Van! he shows the many fascinating sides to the late actor, including speaking to the people who were closest to him. 

Oliver was first captivated by Van during the 1970s with his appearances on hit Canadian shows Party Game, a television game show, and The Hilarious House of Frightenstein, a quirky sketch comedy series set in a vampire’s castle. While Oliver was on a trip with his friend and writer Stacey Case, they got lost in conversation about their admiration for Billy Van. That’s when they decided to write a book together. 

It took years before Oliver really began writing the book, as he needed to collect information on the actor. This wasn’t a straightforward task, however. Van was a very private person and he wanted people to focus on his work, so no one really knew too much about his personal life. The more Oliver discovered about Van the more he wanted to write about him. 

“I do look at him as an underappreciated gem. Somebody who should be on the walk of fame and his ability to play so many different roles is fascinating. He was a singer, dancer, comedian, voice actor, and pitch man. He just did so much throughout his career,” says Oliver.

The Hilarious House of Frightenstein was a hit internationally and for Van himself. Oliver says the great thing about Frightenstein shows how the actor loses himself in the multiple characters he played. It also shows how T.V-making has changed since the late 20th century. Van made 130 episodes in nine months which is unheard of today, but it did allow him to become the characters he was playing. In New York City the show was on later in the evening,  and police found that drug activity actually decreased around those times because people would go home to watch the show. Let’s just say it was a pretty trippy show to watch while high. The show today continues to have dedicated fans all over the world. 

“I think Frightenstein hindered our knowledge on how great Billy Van was. It did become a cult classic and so many people remember the roles he played on the show. But the show does overlook some of the other things he’s done. Whether it was Party Game which ran for a decade, and all his leading acting roles in films. Then there’s always voice over and educational work,” says Oliver.

He worked in American film and televisions but as a cast member of the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour show in the 1970s, Van was more of a background actor and he liked it that way. Van did once mention he had a chance to be on the hit show M*A*S*H, which was one of the biggest sitcoms in the 1970s, but he never felt the need or desire to go Hollywood. 

But when he came home to Toronto, he was a star. Maybe that’s why he came home, explains Oliver. He preferred being a big fish in a small pond rather than the other way around. He was an actor at heart, and he liked to be recognized for his performance. 

“The Canadian in me is proud and I thought it was patriotic he came back home. Van loved being in Toronto and he liked working with Canadian productions. The lifestyle in Hollywood wasn’t for him. And that’s one of the big ‘what ifs’ that you never really have the answer to. Hollywood is full of corpses like that, filled with the unknowns,” says Oliver.

There’s no doubt Van was very committed to his work, but that led to him not being around for his kids. Van was married five times, having two daughters with two women and a stepson from his third marriage. In the 1960s after his first daughter, Robin, was born he left his first marriage to pursue a career in show business. Robin didn’t know Van growing up until she tracked him down when she was 20 years old in 1989. 

Oliver says as a writer he wants the great details, but he also knew it would bring out past trauma and pain. It was tricky to walk that line with someone like Robin because she had to talk about a father who wasn’t a part of her life. He had to be aware of the pain he was asking her to dig up and it was a privilege for him to discover that part of Van’s life. At first glance, it’s easy to judge Van but that also involves looking into who he was and what made him choose a life of show business instead of his family. For starters, Van didn’t have a close family growing up and everyone was in show business. They weren’t a family who took things too seriously and they all liked entertaining each other butt didn’t express emotion, especially love. Oliver believes it’s partially why he went into show business. He wanted to make other people laugh, and that came at the expense of his personal life. 

“You can’t put today's expectations and beliefs on what a parent should be on what Billy Van was back then. Times’ change, so the expectations of fatherhood has changed. We are going to judge things by our own standards today, but that doesn’t mean the old values don’t have meaning,” says Oliver. 

Although Van had his own personal struggles, everyone loved him as a professional. Oliver says he talked to many people who worked with him on set, either other actors, directors, crew members, or producers and they all adored working with him. Everyone thought he was a pro at his craft and just fun to be around. But no one really knew him outside of work and it was clear that he liked it that way. In interviews it was always about his latest project and never about his personal life. 

Billy Van died in 2003 from lung cancer, at 68 years old. Van is remembered as the “second banana,” the one who liked being in the background and making people laugh. He showed up, did good work and was praised for it. He kept himself humble throughout his career and tried to make Canada proud. “A lot of people don’t know about him, but I’m proud of the work I’ve done and I’m happy that the book is out there now. Billy Van is not forgotten,” says Oliver.