Digging In — Frank “Frankie Flowers” Ferragine

Coming home from school one summer, Frank Ferragine realized something very simple yet extraordinarily important about himself. For years, he had his sights firmly planted on becoming a lawyer with dreams of judicial grandeur dancing through his mind. He fast-tracked through university to speed up the process while also gaining acceptance to Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. But something was amiss. Something just didn’t feel right.

Ferragine took the year off to help his parents open their new garden centre in Barrie, Ont., – his hands in the dirt and the fragrance of fresh foliage wafting through his nose. It was during those days that he came to a blunt and obvious conclusion: “I really don’t like paperwork.” In that single moment of existential epiphany, Ferragine’s true passion began to actualize and low-and-behold, his true calling was budding right before his eyes: gardening. Read more

Dragon’s Den’s Brett Wilson

‘‘With great power comes great responsibility.” The first time I encountered this phrase I was seven years old with my nose buried deep in a Spider Man comic. At the time, I had absolutely no idea what it meant, just that it sounded pretty cool. Indeed, power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely – guess that’s where the responsibility comes in. There are many men tempted and corrupted by the seductive allure of financial conquest and the power it brings. Entrepreneur and television star Brett Wilson once walked this dangerous path, but unlike his ferocious fellow constituents, Wilson has evolved as an individual and become a beloved and big-hearted philanthropist known for his generous exploits and business prowess.

Today, Brett Wilson is a highly successful Canadian entrepreneur, philanthropist and all-around good guy. He’s the Read more

City Girl, Tré Armstrong

Tracey (Tré) Armstrong was born in Toronto and raised in Mississauga. On So You Think You Can Dance Canada, Armstrong is the judge who exudes rational cognition, which transfers into eloquent speech, and she is never more communicative than when she is on the dance floor choreographing for the hit show.

Five years ago, she was living in Toronto community housing, barely able to pay her rent. Now she is an internationally acclaimed dancer, actress and choreographer. She credits the development of her dancing gene to her mom, who she refers to as her “sexy mamacita.”

“I feel sometimes when you pass a certain plateau, or even a notoriety, some people get protective of their past, but personally I am very open with it because I’m normal. I went through debt, homelessness; I’ve been through an abusive family Read more

The Great Dane Cook

Dane Cook is staring at cover art for his Greatest Hits album. He’s narrowed the title choices down from 15 to three and his deadline is today. The creative process has caused the sandy haired star comedian to take a scenic route down Memory Lane – long before his Forbes list fortune and arena-filling fame. He’s spent the last few weeks listening to grassroots routines and discovering edits of CDs that he didn’t even know existed. “It’s interesting – watching and listening to the evolution of myself. It’s very, very strange.” He pauses. In that brief silence you can hear the deafening authenticity behind Cook’s quiet confidence.

Ankle-deep in conversation, it becomes refreshingly apparent that one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People hasn’t let sold-out stadiums and Hollywood movie roles alongside Kevin Costner, Kate Hudson and Steve Carell Read more

‘I’m Doing Fine’: Michael Douglas on the fight of his life

Shallow spectators may see Michael Douglas’s Hollywood life as a bed of roses but only he knows the pain of its thorns. In the midst of his success, Douglas, 65, is currently enduring the later stages of an eight-week course of radiation treatment to cure his aggressive stage IV throat cancer. While he fights the pain of the chemotherapy, his career continues with his box-office hit Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

As Douglas courageously climbed the ladder of success in Hollywood, every so often he might have looked over his shoulder to see that underneath him were people – family members, perhaps – who looked up at him with their hands outstretched, needing him in their lives. Unfortunately for them, ambition has no peripheral vision. As his career soared, his personal life has suffered. Read more

Entourage: The Contemporary Definition of Cool

Glamour has our society swimming in a sparkling sea of delusion and vanity has a whole new face that can’t move its forehead. With this in mind it is no wonder HBO’s hit show Entourage has become so popular. It reflects powerful distractions that throw human beings off their personal course to achieve their full potential, including the procrastinator’s drug of choice that’s being smoked in 50 per cent of their episodes – marijuana. The creators of Entourage continue to master in the art of manipulating and exploiting human weakness.

The team at Entourage has chosen not to shy away from the proverbial fast lane and the toxic consequences that their actors never take seriously. Also interesting is the real-world application of flirtation with this “road of spoils” or “fast-lane” lifestyle. This often tempts its patrons with an exciting taste for the senses that leads to a desire to continually live life in a way that ignores the inner Read more

Nikki Yanofsky: Canadian Singing Sensation

Nikki Yanofsky is unlike other singing sensations her age. At 16, her interest in jazz music and love for performing tracks by timeless music legends like Ella Fitzgerald are a far cry from the pop-saturated culture of 21st century music.

Chosen as the voice for “I Believe” – the anthem for the Canadian broadcast of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games – and gracing a worldwide audience of 3.2 billion viewers during her opening performance of “O Canada” at the Games, Yanofsky recalls it as, “one of the most nerve-racking and amazing experiences” she’s had to date.

“Afterwards, I went back to my dressing room and I’m like, ‘OK, mom, dad – you go into the Green Room, I’ll meet you in a second,’ and I called my best friend and just started crying hysterically Read more

Robert Downey Jr. and Mickey Rourke: Fall & Rise

There are no accidents; everything happens for a reason. Those who choose not to learn from their mistakes are doomed. As they say, there is no worse fool than an old fool. For life is a learning experience and mistakes are one of the courses available in the curriculum of life. The more lessons we learn from the mistakes we make, the wiser we will be. What we must keep in mind is our dreams, however ridiculous they sound. Everyone is good at something and belief can be the strongest driving force that can make any of our dreams possible. Fame comes and goes, stars rise and fall, but dreams live forever. Two of the greatest examples available for us to draw from are Robert Downey Jr. and Mickey Rourke. If mistakes plus lessons learnt equals wisdom, then these two must be the wisest men in Hollywood. Read more

John Travolta and Kelly Preston: Highs and Lows

“The secret to a good and successful marriage is to not look for secret formulas,” laughed John Travolta when I spoke to him in Los Angeles way back in 1995. It was the morning after his Golden Globe win for Best Actor (Get Shorty) and just four years after his marriage to actress Kelly Preston. “It really just comes down to being yourself, being honest and remembering that you have to give as much as you take.”

Travolta met Preston when he was a Hollywood star on his way down and she was a young actress on the way up. Both were in relationships when they met and worked together for the first time on a film called The Experts in 1987. They had a lot in common – they were both Scientologists – but Preston was married to actor Kevin Gage at the time. After divorcing Gage in 1987, Preston began a relationship with actor Charlie Sheen. Sheen proposed Read more

Michael J. Fox — Parkinson’s Disease Awareness

His brain and pill playing nice at alchemy, Michael J. Fox rose from the ground and onto the platform at the closing 2010 Winter Olympic Games, smoothly delivering a tongue-in-cheek monologue on Canada’s back bacon and ‘I’m sorry’ stereotypes. Comedic pokes at Canadiana aside, his flawless flow of words was what engaged the audience and viewers around the world. His unwavering gait and quick smile called for the crowd to rise to its feet to celebrate the victory and fortitude of the human spirit, garnering the loudest standing ovation on that mild Vancouver night.

He inhales conviction and exhales hope and because of that, we believe.

Michael J. Fox, 49, has Parkinson’s disease, a disease that tears at the brain, our throne of intelligence. The condition Read more

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