Mike Gutwillig (1925 – 2023): ‘It was always about what he could do for someone else’

Concordian who created musical of Montreal’s iconic Wilensky’s deli remembered as a uniter

June 2, 2023

By Doug Sweet

Mike Gutwillig standing on a street in downtown Montreal

Mike Gutwillig, BA 48, BFA 97 co-penned the musical The Special, the story of a young Jewish boy who falls in love with a francophone girl in Montreal during the heated referendum campaign of 1980.

The late Myer “Mike” Gutwillig, BA 48, BFA 97, was a man of many passions — especially Broadway musicals — and a Montrealer to his core.

Businessman, author, journalist, public-relations executive and realtor, Gutwillig was first known for launching the downtown-focused newspaper En Ville, which he published and wrote columns for from 1963 to 1970.

It was Montreal’s pre-October Crisis heyday, with Canada’s centennial World’s Fair, Expo 67, smack in the middle of the era — a joyous time in a city where there was much to celebrate. Gutwillig made sure he was part of the party.

He wrote a book about Montreal in that centennial year, called From the Heart, which contained 97 stories about the city, including tales of Mayor Jean Drapeau and former TV reporter Leslie Roberts. Much later, in his 70s, he was admitted to Concordia’s film school, now known as the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema.

Gutwillig, who died on January 2 at 97, was a uniter, says Barry Beloff, a long-time friend and Concordia grad who met him through the public-relations business.

“He brought people together because he thought something good would happen,” Beloff says. “He introduced a lot of people to a lot of people.”

Beloff recalls that in 1974, a year after the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East, Gutwillig wanted to create an Arab-Jewish friendship association in Montreal. “Mike told me he had heard hockey-great Jean Béliveau speak on brotherhood at a Vancouver prayer breakfast,” Beloff recalls.

Gutwillig thought Béliveau should address the inaugural meeting of the Arab-Jewish association and asked Beloff if he could set up a meeting. Beloff was doubtful, but Béliveau found some time to talk to the irrepressible Gutwillig. “I don’t think it took three minutes before Béliveau said, ‘When would you want me?’” Beloff muses, adding that the Hockey Hall of Famer went on to make a stirring speech before a crowd of 300.

‘I never saw him happier than when he was in rehearsal’

A black-and-white yearbook photo of Mike Gutwillig

Another of Gutwillig’s passions was Wilensky’s — along with Schwartz’s, Beauty’s and the now-defunct Ben’s, the prime Montreal Jewish delis that sparked generational arguments about which counter served the best smoked meat — made famous by Mordecai Richler in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.

One of the restaurant’s sandwiches, The Special, a grilled salami-from-beef and bologna-from-beef concoction with obligatory mustard on a kaiser roll, was named one of the world’s best sandwiches in 2012 by Travel + Leisure magazine.

Gutwillig took Wilensky’s to off-Broadway. Collaborating with legendary Montrealer Galt MacDermot, who wrote the award-winning music for Hair, Gutwillig penned the musical The Special, the story of a young Jewish boy who falls in love with a francophone girl in Montreal during the heated referendum campaign of 1980. The play — “a sort of Canadian ‘West Side Story,’” per the New York Times, and set in the fictional Montreal deli Rubinsky’s, was performed by Manhattan’s Jewish Repertory Theater in 1985 after Gutwillig was accepted into its playwright-in-residence program.

“I never saw him happier than when he was in rehearsal,” Beloff recalled. “Mike was in absolute heaven.”

Another friend, former Westmount City Councillor Victor Drury, remembers Gutwillig at a Montreal ecumenical prayer breakfast back in the early 1960s. “Mike read us letters from a prisoner in Stanley Prison in Hong Kong. It was remarkable,” Drury says, remembering how moved he was by that, as well as how successful Gutwillig was at encouraging women to join the predominantly male group.

Both agree Gutwillig was of a rare, enthusiastic and selfless breed.

“It was never about him,” Beloff says. “It was always about what he could do for someone else.”

Gutwillig was pre-deceased by his wife, Judy, and is survived by his children, Tracy and Glenn.

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Mike Gutwillig (1925 – 2023): ‘It was always about what he could do for someone else’

‘I never saw him happier than when he was in rehearsal’

Mike Gutwillig (1925 – 2023): ‘It was always about what he could do for someone else’

‘I never saw him happier than when he was in rehearsal’

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