Inventor, journalist.
Born at Portage la Prairie on 10 September 1864, he attended Wesley College briefly then joined a professional hockey team at Hamilton, Ontario. Three years later, he was banned for life as a result of a fight with another player. He left Canada and worked in oil fields in southeast Asia and South America.
After becoming an American citizen in 1904, he worked as an orchestral conductor and conducted early experiments in synchronization of musical scores to silent films. He made a fortune selling his method to theatres and filmmakers but lost it the 1929 stock market crash.
He became an internationally recognized authority on tournament bridge and wrote an authoritative book on the subject in 1944. He was national director of the American Contract Bridge League from 1936 to retirement in 1956. He continued to cover major bridge tournaments and was still writing a weekly bridge column for the St. Petersburg Times at the time of his death.
He died at St. Peterburg, Florida on 10 June 1965.
Obituary, Winnipeg Tribune, 11 June 1965.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 23 April 2022
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