Knelman, Martin 1943-

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KNELMAN, Martin 1943-

PERSONAL: Born June 17, 1943, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; son of John M. (an insurance executive) and Marion (Medovy) Knelman; married Bernadette Sulgit (managing editor of Saturday Night), June 12, 1975; children: Joshua Medovy, Sara. Education: University of Manitoba, B.A., 1964, B.A. (with honors), 1967; University of Toronto, M.A., 1972.

ADDRESSES: Home and office—224 Robert St., Toronto, Ontario M5S 2K7, Canada. E-mail—martknel@ idirect.com.

CAREER: Manitoban, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, editor, 1963-64; Globe & Mail, Toronto, Ontario, copy editor and reporter, 1964-66; Toronto Star, Toronto, Ontario, film critic, 1967-69; entertainment columnist, 1999—; Globe & Mail, film critic, 1969-76; freelance writer, 1973—; lecturer at York University, 1970-73.

MEMBER: Periodical Writers Association of Canada.

AWARDS, HONORS: Senior arts fellowship from Canada Council, 1973-74; Nathan Cohen Award for Drama Criticism, 1982, 1989, 1995; Imperial Oil Award for Arts Journalism, 1992; White Award for Journalism, 1993.

WRITINGS:

This Is Where We Came In: The Career and Character of Canadian Film, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1977.

A Stratford Tempest, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1982.

Laughing on the Outside: The Life of John Candy, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1997.

The Joker Is Wild: The Trials and Triumphs of Jim Carrey, Penguin Putnam (New York, NY), 1999.

Mike's World: The Life of Mike Myers, Penguin (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2002, Firefly Books (Buffalo, NY), 2003.

Author of columns, including a theatre column in Saturday Night, 1975—, a film column in Toronto Life, 1976-94, and "O Canada" in Weekend, 1976-77. Frequent contributor to Financial Post, 1989-99. Contributor to magazines, including Weekend, Atlantic Monthly, and Maclean's.

SIDELIGHTS: Canadian journalist and author Martin Knelman has made a successful career writing about Canadian film and biographies of Canada's funniest men. With his background as a film critic and arts and entertainment columnist for the Toronto Star and Globe & Mail, Knelman has been able to draw on a wide array of materials to assist him in writing about Canada's cinematic history in This Is Where We Came In: The Career and Character of Canadian Film. Following his general studies on film, Knelman has written several unauthorized biographies of Canadian funnymen, including John Candy, Jim Carrey, and Mike Myers.

John Candy, the SCTV comedian who appeared in over forty films and died an untimely death at age forty-three, is the subject of Knelman's Laughing on the Outside: The Life of John Candy. Booklist reviewer Mike Tribby commented that though Knelman found many sad and dark elements in Candy's life, "he focuses on the comedy." He added that Knelman made what is ultimately a sad story "sympathetic and memorable, too." Maclean's contributor Morton Ritts also felt Laughing on the Outside is a sympathetic biography, but he concluded that ultimately, "the reader is left with a two-dimensional impression of a three-dimensional man."

The career of actor Jim Carrey is the subject of Knelman's The Joker Is Wild: The Trials and Triumphs of Jim Carrey. The book chronicles Carrey's rise from his humble and often difficult childhood, to his time as a stand-up comic in Toronto, to his meteoric star status in Hollywood. Winston-Salem Journal reviewer Mark Burger noted that Knelman relied primarily on "a seemingly endless collection" of published interviews for his information, and that he "can't be accused of not doing his homework." Knelman explores how the young, misfit Carrey felt out of place dragged onto the Toronto nightclub scene as a boy by his father. Toronto Sun critic Jim Slotek suggested "that alienation may have laid the groundwork for the eventual sea-change in [Carrey's] career, where he began to explore darker comic impulses."

Mike's World: The Life of Mike Myers is Knelman's unauthorized biography of a Canadian comic who hit the big time in Hollywood with such films as Wayne's World and the Austin Powers series. Quill & Quire reviewer Keith Garebian observed that the book's title is somewhat misleading as the narrative offers a "hasty introduction to Myers's Scarborough upbringing and comedy apprenticeship," then "focuses almost exclusively on the films." Knelman does argue that Myers's reputation for being difficult is unwarranted.