You probably know him as Mr. Lahey, the tipsy trailer park
supervisor from Trailer Park Boys. But perhaps you once sat on
his jolly ol’ lap at the mall and put in a special request for an Atari
and a Lite Brite. Actor John Dunsworth reigned the red velvet chair in
Halifax’s West End Mall, playing Santa to the delight of kids in the
late ’70s and into the ’80s.
In the early days of his career, Dunsworth says he didn’t turn down
any theatre work, from set construction and selling tickets to playing
a talking horse to an unimpressed audience of teens. Nonetheless, he
took pride in the role of Santa, bleaching his eyebrows white and
donning both jury-rigged pillow and beard. While waiting for tots to
show, he played harmonica and performed the Rime of the Ancient
Mariner. (Yup, the one about the unfortunate old soul with the
twinkle in his eye who shot down a friendly albatross, lost a game of
dice with Death and then his entire crew croaked one by one.)
While most younguns were keen to clamber up and ask for TVs and
stereos of their own, some were reluctantly frog-marched up to the
imposter. “Kids would sit up there, scared shitless, only doing it
because their parents were making them,” he recalls. “Santa’s a big,
ugly, smelly creature. He’s scary.”
One day while on the job, Dunsworth sauntered into a bank in full
Santa regalia, proclaiming it a “Ho-ho-hold up.” “I got into trouble,”
he says, chuckling.
For a few years he also voiced Santa for a call-in show on CBC
Radio. This was the preferred Santa gig, being the most actor-y and not
needing the getup. “They haven’t asked me to do it anymore, since a
couple years ago one little kid asked me how Mrs. Claus was and I said,
‘You didn’t hear? Mrs. Santa has dyed…her hair. She looks wonderful!’
There was a collective gasp in the room.”
Despite a couple run-ins with the authorities, freelance Santa work
remained a rewarding experience for the now-veteran actor. “You can see
all sides of humanity there. The privileged kids and kids that are
going to be stinted at Christmas and not get what they want and
probably contribute to their embitterment for the rest of their lives,”
he says. “But all of them are stories, every person and every face you
see is a separate little drama or comedy.”
A note to Santa, if you’re out there: For the record, John Dunsworth
has done his darndest to be on your “Nice List” this year. We here at
The Coast will vouch for his character.
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2009.
