From left, Ron Base, Brian Vallée and Ray Bennett in Toronto September 2010
By Ray Bennett
My good mate Brian Vallée died Saturday in a Toronto hospital after a fight with cancer. He was 70. That’s him in the centre of the photo with me and another great chum Ron Base on the left in a Toronto restaurant last September.
Brian and I became fast friends when he walked into the newsroom at the Windsor Star in the early 1970s. We stayed pals for nearly 40 years. He and Ron and I always got together on my many trips back to Canada over the years and it was always illuminating, boisterous and rude, and great fun.
He was a hell of a reporter and had great success on CBC-TV’s current affairs show “the fifth estate”. He wrote several well-received books about real life crime and social problems.
In the peripatetic newspaper trade you tend to lose folk along the way so our longtime friendship along with Windsor Star colleagues and pals such as Ron, Jim Bruce and Gord Henderson was something to be treasured. It is still.
Read more about Brian Vallée
Brian was as much of a legend in the press club as he was in the newsroom. The Windsor Star in the early seventies was full of memorable people. Unfortunately one of them has now gone.