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Donald Shebib
Donald Everett Shebib (27 January 1938 – 5 November 2023) was a Canadian film and television director. Shebib was a central figure in the development of English Canadian cinema who made several short documentaries for the National Film Board of Canada and CBC Television in the 1960s before turning to feature films, beginning with the influential Goin' Down the Road (1970) and what many call his masterpiece, Between Friends (1973). He soon became frustrated by the bureaucratic process of film funding in Canada and chronic problems with distribution as well as a string of box office disappointments. After Heartaches (1981), he made fewer films for theatrical release and worked more in television.
Shebib was Noah "40" Shebib's father.
Shebib was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Mary Alice Long, a Newfoundlander of Irish descent, and Moses "Morris" Shebib, born in Sydney, Nova Scotia, in 1910, himself the son of Lebanese immigrants.
Shebib grew up in an economically precarious household, and in a neighbourhood where he felt he was an outsider, "growing up with a name like Shebib, very working class, being raised a Catholic in Orange Ontario", conceding he "probably took it more sensitively" than he had to, adding that he was always shy in high school: "I didn't know where I fit in. I grew up feeling pretty inferior." In a 2011 interview with Andrea Nemetz in the Halifax Chronicle Herald, Shebib said: "I was aware of migratory experiences – like the Okies in California in the dust bowl. I had a cousin who came to stay with us in Toronto in the late 1950s and he tried to make a go of it and couldn't and went back to the Maritimes."
The young Shebib grew up loving sports, comic books, and Hollywood "chestnuts" or vintage films, the family acquired their first television set in 1952; for a certain time, Shebib refused to watch any film made after 1940.
Shebib played semi-pro football as a young man, and studied sociology and history at the University of Toronto. While very interested in sociological patterns from history, he did not enjoy reading enough to pursue this interest further academically, but was still looking for something to do that would appeal to his "jock and artist impulses".
In 1961, Shebib enrolled in the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, where he gained early experience working on Roger Corman productions, notably as a cinematographer and assistant editor on Dementia 13 (1962), his classmate Francis Ford Coppola's first film, and The Terror (1963). He also made his earliest short films. In 1965, he graduated with a Master of Arts, but decided to return home rather than pursue a career in Hollywood.
Over the next five years, Shebib found his way into the Canadian film industry and quickly established himself, reflecting on his decision to return in 1970:
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Donald Shebib
Donald Everett Shebib (27 January 1938 – 5 November 2023) was a Canadian film and television director. Shebib was a central figure in the development of English Canadian cinema who made several short documentaries for the National Film Board of Canada and CBC Television in the 1960s before turning to feature films, beginning with the influential Goin' Down the Road (1970) and what many call his masterpiece, Between Friends (1973). He soon became frustrated by the bureaucratic process of film funding in Canada and chronic problems with distribution as well as a string of box office disappointments. After Heartaches (1981), he made fewer films for theatrical release and worked more in television.
Shebib was Noah "40" Shebib's father.
Shebib was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Mary Alice Long, a Newfoundlander of Irish descent, and Moses "Morris" Shebib, born in Sydney, Nova Scotia, in 1910, himself the son of Lebanese immigrants.
Shebib grew up in an economically precarious household, and in a neighbourhood where he felt he was an outsider, "growing up with a name like Shebib, very working class, being raised a Catholic in Orange Ontario", conceding he "probably took it more sensitively" than he had to, adding that he was always shy in high school: "I didn't know where I fit in. I grew up feeling pretty inferior." In a 2011 interview with Andrea Nemetz in the Halifax Chronicle Herald, Shebib said: "I was aware of migratory experiences – like the Okies in California in the dust bowl. I had a cousin who came to stay with us in Toronto in the late 1950s and he tried to make a go of it and couldn't and went back to the Maritimes."
The young Shebib grew up loving sports, comic books, and Hollywood "chestnuts" or vintage films, the family acquired their first television set in 1952; for a certain time, Shebib refused to watch any film made after 1940.
Shebib played semi-pro football as a young man, and studied sociology and history at the University of Toronto. While very interested in sociological patterns from history, he did not enjoy reading enough to pursue this interest further academically, but was still looking for something to do that would appeal to his "jock and artist impulses".
In 1961, Shebib enrolled in the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, where he gained early experience working on Roger Corman productions, notably as a cinematographer and assistant editor on Dementia 13 (1962), his classmate Francis Ford Coppola's first film, and The Terror (1963). He also made his earliest short films. In 1965, he graduated with a Master of Arts, but decided to return home rather than pursue a career in Hollywood.
Over the next five years, Shebib found his way into the Canadian film industry and quickly established himself, reflecting on his decision to return in 1970: