Ed Mirvish dies, aged 92
Honest Ed Mirvish, the man who invented the discount store in Canada, saved the Old Vic Theatre in London, England and, with his son David, built the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, died early Wednesday morning at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. He was 92.
A salesman, an entrepreneur and an impresario, Mr. Mirvish was also a well-known philanthropist. He was a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a Member of the Order of Canada and the recipient of more than 250 awards. He leaves his wife, Anne; his son, David, a theatrical producer; three grandchildren; his sister, Lorraine, and his extended family. The funeral is planned for Friday, according to Russell Lazar, general manager of Honest Ed's, with the location and the time to be announced tomorrow. The flag at Toronto's city hall were to fly at half mast on Thursday.
A brilliant marketer, a canny businessman, a workaholic and a retail visionary, Mr. Mirvish built a discount empire that in its day was a model of entrepreneurial chutzpah. His privately held, strictly cash business took him from poverty to wealth and earned him a surfeit of cultural capital.
Zany antics and an enduring support of the arts, especially live theatre, earned him an affectionate place far beyond the commercial reach of his store. His rise from discount merchant to owner of the Old Vic and the Royal Alexandra Theatres enabled him to rub shoulders with royalty and hang around with stars of the theatrical world, including Peter O'Toole and Sir John Gielgud.
Ed (Honest Ed) Mirvish waves to the crowd while celebrating his 90th birthday in Mirvish Village in Toronto in 2004. (Donald Weber/The Globe and Mail)
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Honest Ed's, the bargain emporium at Bloor and Bathurst Streets in Toronto that he opened in 1948 by cashing his wife's insurance policy, grossed about $1-million in four years later, and he never looked back.
Among the life lessons he loved to pass on: Bright lights lure customers like moths; the bigger the display of merchandise, the more people buy. As good as his word, he decorated the store with a mammoth sign decorated with 22,000 light bulbs and luridly painted signs.
”No exchanges, no refunds, no credit, no delivery and short hours,” Mr. Mirvish liked to boast. ”By eliminating all those services you should be able to pass on those services to the customer.”
Despite his brash approach to business, Mr. Mirvish, who was soft spoken and had a courtly manner, was a dapper dresser, even down to patent-leather black shoes. He never had a secretary, never accepted government subsidies for his theatrical productions, never took his operations public and almost always paid cash. At its height, his empire included a city block running south from Honest Ed's; Markham Village, a residential street of brightly painted Victorian houses that he rented cheaply to artisans and book dealers; and the stretch of King Street West that housed his theatres, The Princess of Wales and the Royal Alexandra.
”I never like to talk about money,” he would say, by way of deflecting questions about his personal net worth. ”I don't think it's important once you are not hungry. After a while, you're nothing but a caretaker or a custodian.”
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