OBITUARIES DESK: 416-585-5509 FAX: 416-585-5699 [email protected] Obituaries DEATH NOTICES: 416-585-5111
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S8 G The Globe and Mail, Friday, Oct. 17, 2008 ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ OBITUARIES DESK: 416-585-5509 FAX: 416-585-5699 [email protected] Obituaries DEATH NOTICES: 416-585-5111 JEANETTE HELLER, 97 8 DANCER TOM TRESH 8 71 YANKEES SWITCH-HITTER WAS TOP ROOKIE IN 1962 Canada’s original Rockette Venice, Fla. Tom Tresh, who won Rookie of the Year honours and a World Series title with the New York Yankees, died yesterday of a ‘did everything but the circus’ heart attack. He was 71. Mr. Tresh was the American Showgirl from Paris, Ont., who longed to dance went to New York in 1930 and ended up League’s top rookie in 1962, bat- ting .286 with 20 homeruns and in the chorus line at Radio City Music Hall. ‘I always worked in the line. I was never a solo artist’ 93 runs batted in while helping the Yankees to a World Series championship. 27, 1932. Two years later, Mr. turned to the U.S., where she A switch-hitting shortstop and Rothafel changed their name took out citizenship, according outfielder, he played nine sea- to the Rockettes. to her youngest brother, Mick- sons in big-league baseball, most According to Ms. Heller, the ey Heller, and resumed her ca- of those with the Yankees. He line was arranged from the reer as a dancer. Working SANDRA MARTIN tallest in the middle to the mostly on contracts, she per- was a career .245 hitter with 153 .................................................... shortest on the ends. At 5 feet formed around the U.S. and homers and 530 RBI, and part of [email protected] 4 inches, she was three inches travelled extensively, especial- the Yankees’ AL championship shorter than the tallest dan- ly when she went to Japan as teams in 1963 and 1964. cers – today the minimum part of a United Service Orga- “He did everything well as a he population is aging – height is 5 feet 6 inches. For nizations (USO) troupe to en- ballplayer and was an easy guy to that’s a fact not a com- the next eight years, she trav- tertain the occupation forces, plaint – but Jeanette Hell- elled with the Rockettes across and then to Korea during the manage,” said Yogi Berra, who T played with and managed Mr. er was somebody who refused North America, appearing on Korean War in the early fifties. to give in to sagging flesh or the same stage as celebrities Later, she danced in Scandina- Tresh. “He was a good man and a creaky joints. The oldest living such as Bob Hope, Louis Arm- via, the Middle East, Cuba – great friend.” Canadian Rockette, she was as strong and Gene Autry. Every- before the revolution – and in A three-time All Star, Mr. Tresh supple as a woman one-third thing changed after the various European capitals. won the Gold Glove Award as an her age, as she did pliés in her Second World War erupted. “What other Yiddish girl met outfielder in 1965. He was traded kitchen while she was waiting Several of her brothers were royalty back then?” she asked for the bread in her toaster to overseas with the Canadian her nephew Aron rhetorically. to Detroit in 1969, and retired after brown in the mornings. “Time military and she was needed She stopped dancing profes- that season. 8 Bloomberg goes very fast,” she said in The in Toronto to care for her sionally in the late fifties, but Limelighters, a documentary mother. remained in New York and be- made by David Hansen and From about 1941 until peace gan a second career in war- GEORGE KISSELL 8 88 aired on Global TV earlier this came in 1945, she worked in drobe and show production. year. “When I turned around the circulation department She worked for the American COACH BEGAN AT DEFUNCT and I realized I was 95, I didn’t and the mailing room at The Ballet Theatre, fashion shows HAMILTON RED WINGS believe it myself.” Globe and Mail, restraining at the Waldorf-Astoria, and Victoria. George Kissell, a long- Having danced with the orig- Jeanette Heller, circa 1935, and at about 95. During the Second World her show-business tendencies Broadway shows such as Guys time baseball coach known as inal Rockettes in the thirties in War, she returned home for a spell. She worked at the Globe and Mail in those grey and treacherous and Dolls and The King and I. New York, she made her final and appeared at the Canadian National Exhibition, below left. times to organizing the annual She eventually got into TV as The Professor, has died from in- public performance as a dan- Christmas show for her fellow well, working on soap operas juries suffered in a Florida car cer more than 75 years later employees. such as All My Children and crash. He was 88. when she joined a band of cur- She made it into the editorial One Life To Live, as well as The Mr. Kissell worked in the St. rent Rockettes and more than pages of the newspaper in Jan- Dick Cavett Show and The Ed Louis Cardinals organization for 1,500 amateurs outside the uary, 1944, when she became Sullivan Show. She was even 68 years as a player, scout, coach, Hummingbird Centre (now the source for a column titled involved in the production of the Sony Centre for the Per- “Cruelty to Jews seen in To- Sesame Street. and manager. Renowned as a tu- forming Arts) on a chilly ronto” by J.V. McAree. “My fa- She finally moved back to tor and mentor, he was senior morning in Toronto in Novem- ther served in the last war; my Toronto in 1975, at 64, to be field co-ordinator for player devel- ber, 2006. The Toronto line, brother is a navigator in the closer to her extended family. opment at the time of his death. which linked arms and kicked air force overseas. I am a dan- Winters were something else, His lengthy career began in On- right and then left for more cer by profession, and am now so she spent them in Florida, tario with the Hamilton Red than five minutes, beat the doing office work because war- working as a wardrobe manag- Wings farm team in 1940. The previous Guinness World Re- time restrictions prevent my er on shows that probably ca- cord (established in Germany continuing my work in the tered to many of her fellow third baseman became a regular in 2004 with 1,150 partici- United States,” a woman, who Canadians who had also fled the following season, when he pants) by more than 500 high- ing lessons. She left school at is identified only as J.H, says. the snow for sunshine. Ms. recorded an impressive .350 bat- stepping and enthusiastic am- " 16 and found small parts in She goes on to describe how Heller finally retired at 82, ting average. ateurs. pantomime and vaudeville she tried to take lessons at a after having worked behind He served in the U.S. Navy for “It was fun,” insisted Ms. My family never paid any shows at the Royal Alexandra local skating club, but was re- the scenes in the Jackie Glea- three years during the Second Heller, who was wearing a Theatre in Toronto. She rel- jected when she revealed she son Theatre in Miami Beach sweatshirt and black pants interest in me, I was not a ished the excitement and at- was Jewish on her application. for close to 20 years. World War and afterward re- tucked into cowboy boots and special person in the tention. “My family never paid “Night after night, I have About a decade ago, she turned to Hamilton as a playing showed no signs of breaking a any interest in me, I was not a danced at canteens and enter- moved into the Performing manager, guiding the club – by sweat after her five-minute family. Nobody ever said special person in the family,” tainments for the boys in the Arts Lodge in downtown To- then known as the Cardinals – to workout. Even her mascara that they loved us or told she told her great-nephew service – without pay, of ronto where she enjoyed a a third-place finish in the Pennsyl- was intact as she gave an in- Aron Heller for an article he course – and worked all day at lively retirement, socializing vania-Ontario-New York (PONY) terview to local media saying, us that we were pretty wrote last year in the quarterly the office. Probably some of with other artists and perform- League in both 1948 and 1949. In “Toronto needed this.” Guilt and Pleasure. “Nobody those boys are sons and broth- ers, keeping fit with yoga and A career woman who never when we were kids. ever said that they loved us or ers of members of this same aerobics and reliving high- 1949, he led the league with 15 tri- married or had children, Ms. Jeanette Heller told us that we were pretty skating club,” she said in an lights of a wide-ranging career ples to be named the city’s ath- Heller lived her life “her way,” when we were kids.” interview for the article. Justi- that included ballet, drama, lete of the year. with grease paint and curtain When she was 19, she packed fiably outraged on Ms. Heller’s musical comedy, fashion Smallish at 5-foot-8, 168 pounds, calls. “I always worked in the her suitcase and moved to behalf, the editorialist argues shows, movies and the early he was known as a runner adept line.