‘Look at my eyes, I’ve been crying.’ Marilyn Denis reflects on the ups and downs of her life in television

The final instalment of “The Marilyn Denis Show” airs June 9, capping a week of emotional, reflective episodes, with special guests including Jann Arden, The Property Brothers and Michael Bublé. Denis will remain on the radio as co-host of “Marilyn Denis and Jamar” on Chum 104.5, but as she puts it, “daytime television is done for me.” Here, Denis talks to her longtime friend and fellow broadcaster Maureen Holloway about how she navigated difficult personalities, raising her son on set as a single mother and the celebrity interviews she loved most.

Maureen Holloway: I’m so honoured that you asked me to do this and I’ll try to make it as difficult as possible. So how are you feeling about the final goodbye?

Marilyn Denis: “Well, look at my eyes, I’ve been crying. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been watching people’s reels of all the wonderful contributions that they made to the show, with them, and we all get tearful because it’s been a lot of hard work, a lot of years putting the show together. And I’m feeling tired, but grateful.”

MH: I was actually behind the scenes when the announcement came down. I had a chance to talk to a couple of people who have worked with you for a long time and they were absolutely shocked [that you were leaving]. I was like, “she wasn’t going to do this forever!” But a television show is like a big family, and mama’s leaving.

MD: “It’s a big family. I’ve got pretty much the same people, the soul of the show, still here doing it with me. I love collaborating with them, on a larger scale than say radio. I’m going to miss that.”

MH: You’ve made it very clear, and I have no doubt knowing how much the company treasures you, that this was your call.

MD: “It was my call. I felt that when you get up early in the morning and you think to yourself, ‘what time can I go to bed tonight?’ that’s not a way to live. I also have a husband now, and a grandchild, and there are going to be extracurricular activities with the little one, soccer or swimming lessons, and I want to be awake and alert to witness those things.

The show is doing great, so let’s end on a high. This is a large step away and I think it’s part one of what will eventually be another. I really don’t know when that’s going to happen. I’ll do this for a little bit and see how it feels and then I’ll make a decision on that.”

MH: You are not leaving; you are giving up the visual part of Marilyn Denis the TV show. But to me, the hardest thing is getting up before anybody else in the world and putting on a radio show. So tell me, why the one and not the other?

MD: “Because I truly love radio. I don’t like it when I get up at three o’clock in the morning, especially in the winter. But once I get there, I’m glad I’m there. Putting on those headsets makes me feel happy. It’s always been my companion — other things in my life have gone crazy but I always have the radio.”

MH: I think having to worry about what to wear and makeup and hair and always having to look a certain way has got to take its toll.

MD: “There’s a little bit of that but it’s a treat to get your hair done every day. This is how I’d plan: I’d meet someone for lunch or go out for dinner only Monday through Thursday because I had my hair and makeup done — because on Saturday, nothing is going to be done. I’ve already booked a weekly hair appointment, like my mother used to; I’m trying to decide which day is the most important day to do that.”

MH: I don’t know if people realize how comfortable your style is. To me, you wear your Converse sneakers and your baseball caps, and that is as much a part of you as the more glamorous part. Is that going to be Marilyn most of the time now?

MD: “Yes! We gave away a lot of money the other day on the Chum morning show, and I had my baseball cap on, no makeup, the lighting was horrible. But I thought, well, that’s me on the radio. That’s what it looks like. They asked me, could you just get a little glammed up because we’re doing it a little bit more optically? I will do that. You didn’t used to see anybody on the radio; that’s not the case anymore. Just look at us [doing a video interview] now. I do like to get dressed up, but it will be more Marilyn, less blazers.

MH: Let’s go back. Why do you think you were hired for ‘Cityline’?

MD: “I think it was the radio background, because we did it live back then. If anything went amiss, I could make something out of something. If somebody wasn’t doing OK in their segment, I would know how to fill in those spaces.

But I still don’t really know why they hired me. My sister said to me one day — siblings are always so supportive — ‘Why did they choose you to do this, especially the cooking part?’ I was just a little kid back then and I didn’t know much about throw pillows. But maybe that’s what it was: I really wanted to learn. I felt like Cityline, and this show too, it’s like opening up a magazine, except the man or woman would come out and say, this is how you paint the room, this is how you cook the chicken, this is how you tell your children to behave. I’m learning along with the audience, asking the questions. It’s the curiosity factor.”

MH: Having travelled with you and spent time with you, I’ve seen how other people respond to you. There’s something about you that makes people feel that if you’re not their friend, you could be.

MD: “I think it’s because I was in their houses, on screen, and on the radio, when they’re getting their kids ready for school. You’re part of people’s lives, as they are conducting their lives. And then the television portion of it is, ‘OK, my husband is out of the house, I get to spend one hour for myself, and I get to learn about all these things and I’m going to learn along with her.’

When I went from ‘Cityline’ to the ‘Marilyn Denis Show,’ people would go, ‘Oh my gosh, I loved you on ‘Cityline.’’ I said, but I have my own show now! But they were still like, ‘I loved you on ‘Cityline!’’ What I learned from that is how much people are invested in you, and that people don’t like change.”

MH: You were a single mother, with this bizarre schedule in this incredibly demanding industry, doing both radio and television, with little Adam [Wylde] growing up. How was that?

MD: “The thing that kept me going was, was if TV fired me, I’d still have the radio to depend on for money, and vice versa — I could still support the family. For Adam, and you’d have to ask him, he knew those two things were really important. I look down at that studio sometimes, facing the audience, and I remember the audio board being on the left hand side and there was Adam, if he couldn’t go to school that day, quietly playing with his little toy cars. He needed to be quiet, he knew ‘as mommy starts talking, I can’t speak, but I can be very quiet with my cars.’ I involved him and he knew this is what mom does.

Every other weekend, he would go to his dad’s house. I would collapse on the Friday, probably have a major jamming weekend, regroup and then start again on Monday. That’s how it was done. I don’t know how I did it, but I loved both of them so much.

Adam is doing so well in the business, and we’ve had discussions about what was lacking and what he was mad at me for, as we all do when the kids get older and you can have a beer with them. And he’s taken that information and applied it to his life right now, on how to balance as much as you can.”

MH: You’ve met so many famous people but who did you really like?

MD: “Stevie Nicks and I got along so well. We had lots of talks throughout the years; when she’s in town I’ll see her backstage at her concerts. We talked about how some people don’t want your star to rise. Sally Field was very forthcoming about the bad times and the good times, too. When Jane Fonda came on the show, I was waiting for her to come out of the room where she was getting all dolled up. She came out and she grabbed my shoulders and she looked over my face and she said, ‘That’s good.’ I said, ‘Good work, isn’t it?’ She said ‘Yeah, it is.’ I said, ‘You’re looking pretty good too.’ She goes, ‘Thank you.’ She wasn’t going to talk to me about it, it was just an acknowledgment. I said to her, ‘Hey, we’re gonna go out there and have some fun. If you don’t want to answer a question, don’t.’ She goes, ‘No, I’m good to go.’ I had her for about 30 minutes.

I get kind of a high after I interview somebody who I really respect. And it’s not always the people that are famous — everybody has a story.”

MH: So many of the women that I’ve talked to on my podcast have been cage-rattlers, called people out. Jennifer Valentyne is an example, and I include myself. But you have managed to be as successful as you are without getting into trouble, and I include good trouble in this. Am I right in that?

MD: “Yeah, I think so. When challenged, one has a very intense one on one with the individual — not to say that it always worked because there’s some ding dongs that I’ve met along the way. I was raised by men in broadcasting. And some of them I didn’t even waste my time with, to say, ‘Hey, that’s not respectful.’ You can’t walk on me. If I think there’s an injustice to me personally, I will definitely step up to the plate. That’s from my mother. But I don’t think I’m a confrontational person. I could never do talk radio.”

MH: I know what you mean, in talk radio you’re supposed to be controversial and have an opinion for the sake of having one.

MD: “I think part of it is I was the third child of four girls. At the dining room table, I would hear the conversations and be doing a quiet dialogue of how I would respond to stuff. I’d be reacting to the flow of the conversation, not disrupting it, but listening and saying to myself, ‘Oh, if I had the floor right now, I would say this.’ It’s not that they quietened me down. But I look back at dinners on Sunday and think I may have become a better listener because of that.”

MH: I have one more question and it has to do with Jim [Helman] and this lovely romance, this incredible story that he was your friend who was your prom date, and you found each other after all this time. If you didn’t have Jim in your life now, would you be stepping away?

MD: “I would. There’s more life to live. Like having dinner with you and John and Jim and I! After the radio show, I’ll have the rest of the day to do other things. Golfing is one of them; I’m very bad at golf but I’m into it. The NFL season is happening and I’m a big Steelers fan, so I can finish the radio show and be at the Whirlpool Bridge by 10.30, on my way to Pittsburgh for the weekend. I’m excited about that. I need a little bit of a break and I’m going to get one, and I’m really looking forward to it.”

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