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Get your double dose of Marilyn DenisWhether you wake up to her on the radio each morning, or tune in to her daily TV show, Marilyn Denis' good-natured humour and down-to-earth style makes you feel like you've just spent time with a good friend. |
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 [ 2002-03-27 ] |
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Whether you wake up to her on the radio each morning, or tune in to her daily TV show, Marilyn Denis' good-natured humour and down-to-earth style makes you feel like you've just spent time with a good friend.
She's been doing double duty -- as co-host of CHUM-FM's morning show and host of CityLine -- for more than a decade and shows no signs of slowing down. "I can't imagine doing anything else," says Denis, who was born in Edmonton, Alta. and grew up in Pittsburgh, Penn.
After majoring in radio and TV at University of Idaho, she landed her first job in broadcasting as the first female DJ at a local radio station in Moscow, Idaho. "I loved being on the radio. I didn't care about the money. I remember thinking, 'I will never beat this.'"
Eventually, Denis had the itch to move on. "I was hoping someone was driving through the fields and would hear me on the radio and think, 'You've got a great voice.' But it didn't happen that way," says Denis, 43. "No one has ever pulled me out of anyplace. I've had to audition for everything."
She moved to Calgary, where she worked as a swing-shift announcer, did weather reports on a local TV station (for $25 a week) and feature reports for TSN.
She credits "dumb luck" to landing a job doing traffic reports on CHUM-FM -- albeit on a trial basis -- after moving to Toronto in 1986.
Within a couple of years she was asked to audition for CityLine. Though intimidated about taking it over from former host Dini Petty, Denis, with the support of CHUM producers, carved out a fun and informative show all her own.
"No one watched CityLine when I took over," she says. "When people wrote about it, they all wondered, 'How long can she do it?'"
She's been doing it longer than many thought possible -- the Roger, Rick & Marilyn morning show celebrates its 16th anniversary this fall and she's been at the helm of CityLine for 14 years.
Denis gets up each morning around 4 a.m., watches the news and heads off to do the radio show from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. She's in her car no later than 9:10 a.m. to get to the CityLine studios to host the one-hour show beginning at 10 a.m. She attends a production meeting on the next day's show, might squeeze in a workout, and leaves by 2:30 p.m. in time for her 13-year-old son, Adam, to arrive home from school.
According to Denis, the radio show is an exercise in "controlled spontaneity. We pick a topic and go with it; I don't want to know what (Roger) Ashby's going to say until he says it."
At CityLine, a producer organizes each episode. "There's no script. I believe that if we don't cover everything (outlined) then it wasn't meant to be covered."
Denis also hosts the radio program Music Online, an award-winning interview program syndicated across Canada, and has interviewed artists such as Ricky Martin, Tina Turner, Lionel Ritchie, vStevie Nicks and Jann Arden. "If I knew that one day I would talk to people like that, well, the thought of it just blows me away," she says.
A national spokesperson with the Foster Parents Plan of Canada, Denis has also seen a much different world after travelling to Africa to film for a campaign. "I am so proud to be part of it. The children are the stars of it all," says Denis, who credits the experience with making her a better parent.
Denis relishes her successes -- and the ups and downs along the way. "Don't you wish you could turn around and talk to yourself when you're a kid at 18, on your saddest day, and say, 'I can't tell you the specifics, but this is going to happen for you. It's not going to be easy, but it's going to happen.'"
(Linda White is a freelance writerwho can be reached at linda.white@rogers.com.)
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