J.J. McColl biography

| More About J.J.

Comments & Acknowledgements

Born and educated in Vancouver, J.J. McColl started her broadcasting career as a midnight disc jockey at a local radio station. Within three months she had her own open line talk show, perhaps a first for a woman in Canada.

A few more months and she was hosting a daily two-hour music/interviews/talk programme on C.B.C. radio's newly established fm band. Her quick success amazed her.

Prior to that she'd changed jobs ... typist, receptionist, secretary (to writer James Clavell), part-time fashion model, advertising copywriter (she was fired) ... about once a year.

At twenty-seven she'd finally found her niche. Co-hosting and assistant producing "The James Beard Show" on the CTV network followed. Working on that daily show featuring the famous New York food guru put her off cooking (and him) to the degree that to this day she seldom lifts a pot.

The next three years were spent in London, England, freelancing for C.B.C. radio and television, contributing hundreds of items, many with a humorous slant. A disproportionate number dealt with animals. If there was a lost monkey eating Dundee cake, swinging through a Heathrow hangar; if there was a kidnapped cat allegedly hiding out at the Russian embassy, a sexually disinterested panda, a lonely gorilla longing for a banana, she was there, microphone in hand.

Although broadcasting has been her main career, her passion is the arts. It was to pursue an interest in writing and painting that lead her to Hornby Island in B.C.'s Gulf of Georgia. While living there she continued freelancing for the C.B.C. network and it was then that she established herself as a radio documentarian.

Over the years her hour-long programs on subjects as diverse as China under Mao, women writers of ancient Japan, and Red Cross Outpost Hospitals were heard on almost every documentary series on the C.B.C.

Highlights were several trips to Japan, and a journey to Croatia where she profiled the renowned painter, Ivan Generalic.

She was also the major contributor to the C.B.C.'s "B.C. Folio", an interview show that saw her journeying throughout the province, often in very small 'planes over very large mountains or an even larger Pacific ocean.

It was also during the Hornby years that in a penurious moment she baked eleven apple pies and sold them outside the Co Op.

She considers herself a lucky late bloomer. At forty-seven she was asked to write a radio drama, a request that launched a new career. Her first play won an award and she went on to write many more, usually on serious sociological themes. "Mothering", about her mother's decline into Alzheimer's disease, was chosen as one of the best C.B.C. radio dramas of the decade and elicited enormous response from across Canada. She has also written for film and television.

In J.J.'s early fifties she renewed an earlier passion for acting and has appeared in various TV series and movies of the week. A highlight was working with Jack Nicholson in the feature film, "The Pledge", directed by Sean Penn. In that period she also returned to television. For five years she hosted C.B.C.'s award winning "50/UP", which dealt with the changes, choices, and challenges faced by people over fifty.

Throughout the years J.J. has received awards in virtually every category of radio writing (except news), and an A.C.T.R.A. nomination for "Griot", a one woman show she wrote about slavery. She also was nominated for the Y.W.C..A.'s prestigious 'Woman of Distinction' award.