Sadly, the remaining half of comedy duo MacLean and MacLean passed away this week. I was fortunate to know them both and will cherish their memory.
http://www.whatsonwinnipeg.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=69014Performer remembered as having big talent, heartOctober 31st, 2008
by Morley Walker
A ground-breaking Winnipeg performer is being remembered as a man with a big talent and a bigger heart.
Blair MacLean, the elder half of the Juno-nominated musical comedy duo MacLean & MacLean, died Wednesday afternoon at Victoria General Hospital.
He had suffered a heart attack and lapsed into a coma last weekend. He was 65.
"Blair cared enough about people to make us laugh, even when we didn't want to," said Gord Osland, his friend and former band-mate, now residing in Penticton, B.C.
"He used to crack me up so much it was all I could do to sit on my drum stool. He was the funniest guy on the planet."
MacLean and his younger brother Gary, who died of throat cancer in 2001, became legendary in Canadian show business for their ribald brand of musical comedy.
MacLean went on to develop a second career as a visual artist known for his "grain art," which involved attaching real grains to the canvas.
"He was quite the talented person," said his friend David Perich, a chauffeur to the stars in the Manitoba film industry.
"His grain art paintings are in government buildings all over the world."
MacLean & MacLean's notoriety peaked in the late '70s after they were found guilty of performing an immoral act in a Sault Ste. Marie bar.
With famed Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby representing them, they took the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, where it was overturned in 1982.
"That was just a small part of who he was," said Anola-based family entertainment celebrity Al Simmons, who got his start in show biz after MacLean introduced him to his agent, Len Andree.
"He was the nicest, sweetest man you could imagine. My three boys adored him."
Born in Glace Bay, N.S., MacLean landed in Manitoba with the air force and stayed here after he left the military.
After he started performing, he sent for Gary, two years his junior. They did their comedy together from 1972 to 1998. They produced seven albums and performed upwards of 150 shows a year in Canada, the U.S. and Europe.
MacLean moved back to Nova Scotia in the early '90s to establish himself as an artist. Following Gary's death, MacLean and his second wife, Marcia, returned to Winnipeg in 2002 to help care for Gary's three sons.
Before his death, MacLean had finished a memoir of his life and times.
"We are going to publish it," Marcia vowed. "It's a story that needs to be told."
MacLean is survived by two sons, Kevin and Gillis.
