Bruno Gerussi was a Canadian stage and television actor, best known for the lead role in the CBCTelevision seriesThe Beachcombers. He also performed on stage at the Stratford Festival, worked in radio, and hosted CBC's daily television cooking-talk show Celebrity Cooks in the late 1970s.
In 1954 Gerussi joined the Stratford Festival in its second season. During the next few years he went on to act in many stage productions in Canada and the United States, including performing the role of Romeo in the Stratford Festival's first production of Romeo and Juliet in 1960. Gerussi joined CBC radio, and later appeared on television. One of his earliest TV appearances was as Feste in a 1962 TV production of Twelfth Night. In 1967 and 1968 he hosted a nationally broadcast mid-morning CBC radio show, Gerussi, Words and Music.
''The Beachcombers'' years
Gerussi's best-known role arrived in 1972 when he was signed to play Nick Adonidas in The Beachcombers, a comedy-adventure-drama created by Marc and Susan Strange and set on the west coast of Canada. The Beachcombers ran for 387 episodes between 1972 and 1990 and remains Canada's longest-ever running weekly dramatic series. During part of his time with The Beachcombers, Gerussi hosted the CBC cooking program Celebrity Cooks in the late 1970s and most of the 1980s. The series filmed for 12 seasons, with a Monday-to-Friday time slot for most of those years and Gerussi hosted 478 episodes before the show's last season in production, 1987. The Celebrity Cooks episode featured the last public appearance of actor Bob Crane of Hogan's Heroes fame, who was murdered soon afterwards. The taping of Crane's episode was dramatized in the 2002 film, Auto Focus in which actor John Kapelos portrayed Gerussi. Gerussi's appearances in Celebrity Cooks led him to become commercial spokesperson for a line of microwave ovens in the late-1970s/early-1980s. He appeared in commercials for a variety of food products. He was the host of the first Genie Awards broadcast in 1980.
After ''The Beachcombers''
On 21 November 1995, Bruno Gerussi died of a heart attack in Vancouver at the home of his companion, Judge Nancy Morrison. The TV movie The New Beachcombers, was dedicated in his memory. A new series was broadcast from 2002 to 2004.
Awards and recognition
Gerussi received a Gemini Award nomination for Best Performance by a Lead Actor in a Continuing Dramatic Role in 1990 for the final season of The Beachcombers. He won the Geminis' Earle Grey Award posthumously for lifetime achievement in 1996. His children Rico and Tina accepted it on his behalf.
Personal
Both of Gerussi's children went on to work in film and television. His daughter, Tina Gerussi, is a casting director. His son, Rico Gerussi, is an assistant director as well as a lead guitarist/vocalist in R&B band The Raging Butanes in Toronto.
