Lives
By Eric Dowd
Toronto – Do we really need to know so much about the sex lives and drinking habits of political leaders?
A new biography of John Robarts, Progressive Conservative premier from 1961-71, focuses almost as much on the excessive drinking of himself and his first wife and rows with his second as on his political achievements, which were considerable.
A family-approved biography written by an academic has existed since the 1980s, but friends of Robarts felt it was `too dry’ and persuaded TV commentator Steve Paikin to write another.
Public Triumph, Private Tragedy – The Double Life Of John P. Robarts (Viking) plunges deeper into what is generally considered a politician’s private life than any book this writer has seen in 41 years covering politics.
Sometimes it reads like Desperate Housewives or Valley Of The Dolls.
Robarts married Norah McCormick in their hometown London and she opposed his entering politics and after he became an MPP refused to live in Toronto.
She did not want to leave her bridge-playing friends and criticized him more than the opposition parties, saying one public event she attended was `boring’ so loudly some in the audience heard it.
Robarts had been a hearty drinker and began having a Scotch in the morning and bar-hopping at night so friends feared for his health. But he was at his desk working each morning.
His wife started drinking heavily and became an alcoholic. The biography recalls Robarts, considered a stuffed shirt, once asked this writer `how are your lovely wife and five lovely children?’
He explained he had noticed them drawn up waiting in a railway station where politicians and media were returning from a trip and seemed to envy a reporter with a normal family life.
When Robarts quit politics, he asked Norah again to join him in Toronto, but she refused and they divorced.
Robarts at 56 met a `very sexy’ nurse, Katherine Sickafuse, only 28, when he struck up a conversation in a restaurant, and they married.
One of his friends explained he wanted sex and she wanted his power and position, but both were disappointed.
She sunbathed nude at their cottage and his friends thought her domineering, but he was putty in her hands.
Robarts’s son, Tim, upset by an irrational mother and largely absent father, drank, took drugs and shot himself dead on a riverbank and Robarts felt guilty.
Norah not long after got drunk while home alone and choked to death on her supper.
Robarts, once physically powerful, had a series of strokes, walked with a cane and was depressed because he looked feeble.
His wife prevented some of his friends visiting him and most of the things that made life worth living, including `sexual relations with his beautiful young wife,’ were gone.
Robarts told a friend she refused to make a meal for him and when he tried, shoved him so he fell on his back and threatened him with a knife, but she denied it.
He said he and Katherine both wanted a divorce, but could not afford to live separately and later they agreed to try again to make their marriage work.
But soon after he took a shotgun in their bathroom and shot himself dead through the roof of his mouth.
Robarts’s brother Bob’s first question was `did she do it?’ and Katherine complained one of her husband’s friends wanted her arrested for murder and she tried to bar several of his friends from the burial service.
This makes engrossing as well as sad reading and reminds being away from home can strain politicians’ relations with wives and the mighty are not immune from tragedy, but both are well known.
Most of the more sensational events also happened after Robarts stopped being premier anyway and there is no evidence any affected his job.
But all the concentration on them leaves less room for examining Robarts’s policies, which were important -- but not as exciting as sex and booze.
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