Lorraine Thomson

Lorraine Thomson
Thomson as host of V.I.P., 1973
Born	Lorraine Thomson Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Occupation	dancer, television personality, television producer
Known for	Interviewer on CBC Television, co-founder of ACTRA Awards

Lorraine Thomson is a Canadian dancer, television host, television producer and one of the co-founders, with Pierre Berton, of the ACTRA Awards. She was the first dancer hired by the CBC for their first televised variety show, The Big Revue, and made regular appearances as a dancer and actor on many television shows in the first decade of Canadian broadcasting. She turned to radio hosting the 1960s, and then television hosting in the 1970s for CBC's The Naked Mind, The Weaker(?) Sex and V.I.P. She was the one of the first women to produce variety shows on CBC, and for 18 years, she was the program coordinator for Front Page Challenge. She was nominated for several national awards for her work both in front of and behind the camera.

Thomson was born in Regina, Saskatchewan before her family moved to Toronto in 1945. After a childhood illness, she took up dance to speed her recovery. Although she studied several types of dance, she soon began to concentrate on ballet under Boris Volkoff, Betty Oliphant and Gweneth Lloyd; she also took summer classes in New York City.

In 1951, while in New York, she successfully auditioned for the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes and the touring company of Kiss Me Kate, but decided to return to Toronto, where she married her first husband, danced for various open-air productions, and taught ballet for Gweneth Lloyd at the Canadian School of Ballet.

In 1952, the new television department of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation prepared to go on air with Canada's first live televised variety show, The Big Revue. Thomson auditioned with 110 other dancers for a spot on the three-person chorus line; she was the first dancer hired. There were many challenges and mishaps in the age of live television. On one show, Thomson was struck in the head by a swinging microphone boom just before going on-camera, and although she completed her routine, she couldn't remember anything about her dance afterwards; on another show, she had to walk down a set of stairs wearing a feathered costume while trying to hold on to two pigeons that were doing their best to frantically fly away. During the first decade of Canadian television, Thomson performed regularly on Wayne & Shuster, The Barris Beat, The Denny Vaughan Show, and Hit Parade, and also appeared as an actor in various live dramas. She also met or worked with both established stars such as Duke Ellington -- who told her "I'm going to tickle the ivories, then I'm going to tickle you" -- as well as then-unknowns like Norman Jewison, the studio director on The Big Revue, singer Robert Goulet, and a young folksinger named Gordon Lightfoot, who told everyone in the CBC cafeteria that he was going to be a star.