Donald Austin Cullen (January 18, 1933 – June 26, 2022) was a Canadian actor, comedian, writer, and proprietor of the Bohemian Embassy, which he operated, off and on, in various Toronto locations from 1960 to the early 1990s. He was a prolific performer on radio, stage, and television, including as a featured player on Wayne and Shuster's CBC television broadcasts, for 25 years.
Early life and education
Cullen was born in London, Ontario, moving with his family to the High Park area of Toronto in 1936. His parents, Elsie (née Smythe) and Austin Cullen, were fundamentalist Christians. Young Donald studied the Bible at High Park Baptist Church, but later declared himself an atheist. At Humberside Collegiate, he was known among his peers for his imitations of their teachers. He was drawn to the drama club, where he learned he had a capacity for accents, and "that I did this rather well, actually."
He auditioned for the Young Canada Players, but his father forbade him from participating, "partly because they rehearsed on Sunday." The school yearbook declared Cullen "the Jerry Lewis of Humberside," also noting that he was a "'Rawhide' fanatic," referring to the CBC radio program starring humorist Max Ferguson, and "Hopes radio holds a future."
Cullen studied Radio and Television Arts at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, now Toronto Metropolitan University, and briefly at Toronto Teachers' College, only to please his parents, he claimed.
Early career
He started his career in radio at the CBC, as a copy clerk in the television news department, and he worked there for almost four years. He and some CBC colleagues agreed that Toronto needed more creative culture, and a place to gather other than the Celebrity Club, across Jarvis Street from the Corporation. Five people, including Cullen, each put up $100 to start the Bohemian Embassy, a coffeehouse first located what had been the hayloft of a stable at 7 St. Nicholas Street, near Yonge Street. The club presented a diverse range of attractions, juxtaposing folk music with poetry, film screenings, theatrical presentations, magic, and other acts. Performers included musicians Gordon Lightfoot, Sylvia Fricker (later Tyson) and Joni Mitchell, and poets Margaret Atwood, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Milton Acorn, and Al Purdy.
The Embassy was also where, in February 1961, the first edition of the Village Revue opened, a satirical show devised by Barrie Baldaro, Ralph Hicklin, and others. Cullen was implored to join the cast, he recalled, because he could do a Russian accent.
At CBC radio, he hosted a Saturday broadcast, called The Show That Dares To Be Known By Bad Taste Alone. Originally a program that featured hit records, it evolved into including more offbeat recordings and sketches, modelling Rawhide and similar in format to The Max Ferguson Show.
Performances and later career
Starting in October 1964, for six months, Cullen performed as one of the four cast members in a touring adaptation of the British satirical show Beyond the Fringe, known as Beyond the Fringe '65. He had auditioned at an open call in Toronto, and was offered the job some two years later, he claimed because the producers had not been able to find him. The production played more than 200 performances, in more than 70 locations in Canada and the United States, including a four-week run on Broadway, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
A later edition of the Village Revue, under the title, Two's Company, featuring only Baldaro and Cullen, played Cafe Le Hibou, the Ottawa coffeehouse, in September 1965.
In October 1965, the 90-minute show returned to the Bohemian Embassy, then transferred to the Colonnade Theatre. Toronto Daily Star theatre critic Nathan Cohen described Cullen as "having the look of a famished vampire and a voice trembling on the brink of uninhibited hysteria."
It had been directed by recent University of Toronto student Lorne Lipowitz, later Lorne Michaels, whose then-girlfriend Rosalind Shuster's father, Frank, saw the show, and from that meeting began Cullen's regular appearances on Wayne and Shuster's television shows. He joined a repertory company, specializing in eccentric characters and dialects. Emulating Alec Guinness's ability to change his appearance according to the character he played, using makeup, costume, hair, and props, Cullen said he enjoyed when people said, "You were on Wayne and Shuster? I never saw you on Wayne and Shuster."