funnies
“The Unlikeliest Couple in Show Business” from Maclean’s, October 1, 1955.
“George Murray was a Scot from Winnipeg imitating an Irish tenor. Shirley Harmer was a saddle-shoed girl from Thornton’s Corners imitating a TV queen. The romantic and rollicking story of how they joined forces reads like the plot of a Broadway musical!”
Like many comic nerds, I’m fascinated by old pictures of people reading comics. This one isn’t very sharp. I assume Harmer is reading a then-recent edition of the Toronto Star’s weekend funnies, since they had the biggest comics section back then. It looks like maybe Steve Canyon?
George Murray (1913-1982) and Shirley Harmer (b. 1932) were a musical/recording/radio/tv couple in Toronto’s tiny entertainment world of the 1950s. The profile paints Murray as sort of a Falstaffian-Svengali type and makes much of the age difference between the couple, but they seem like more of a Johnny and June Carter Cash style perfect match. But hey, a photo of someone reading comics!