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Townsman, 1992-01, Page 31PGE©pliGi About the power of publicity, royal portraits and funny tales Kirkton-area author Elaine Gottschall has learned the power of publicity in the last year after appear- ances on some high-profile radio and television shows sent the sales of her self -published book Food and The Gut Reaction soaring. The book has entered its fifth print- ing and sales have totalled 40,000 a phenomenal amount for any Canadian book, let alone one not backed by the power of a large publisher. The most recent fuss over the book started after Gottschall appeared on a CBC Radio phone-in show in February, 1991 to discuss her specific carbohydrate diet for sufferers of intestinal and behavioural problems. The interest generated by the program sent book orders soaring and it hit the best sell- er list. That in turn sparked an appear- ance on television's Dini Petty Show in March along with several people who said they had been cured by her diet. After that, "all hell broke loose" she said recently. Before the show was over, the phone started ringing non-stop. Three days later, it was still ringing at 26 - second intervals, her husband Herb said. For the next three weeks the inquiries came in a steady stream, prompting Bell Canada to call to see if there was something wrong with their telephone because so many callers had complained they couldn't get through. It was quite a success story for a book that four publishers turned down because they didn't think there would be enough buyer interest. Even after Herb Gottschall formed his own small publishing company and had the book printed, many larger stores refused to carry it. Few artists can even dream of painting the subject Cyril Leeper of Clinton will be painting this summer. The renowned portrait painter will be heading to England to paint a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. Actually the portrait won't be of the Queen as monarch but as Patron of the Royal Regiment. "She has a military uni- form she will be wearing for the por- trait," Lceper says. "The painting will be done in Buckingham Palace in a special room which has been reserved for artists for hundreds of years. I can't reveal too many details about it, but I can say the painting will be done in 1992." While he has never painted royalty before, Leeper is used to being in august company. Recently his portrait of retiring Lieutenant -Governor Lin- coln Alexander was unveiled by Pre- mier Bob Rae at the Ontario Legislature. His most recent project is a portrait of David Lam, Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia. His paintings already hang in the National Portrait Gallery of Great Britain and the legislatures of Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Still, all those successes are only preliminaries to painting a queen. "Portrait painting royalty is the top of the line. You can't get any higher. They represent hundreds and hun- dreds of years of history and tradition. In my opinion, it is definitely the height of a portrait painter's career." Back in 1984 Catherine MacDon- ald told her husband, Hanover lawyer Peter V. MacDonald to put up or shut up, to either put his collection of funny legal stories in print as he had long talked about doing, or stop talk- ing about it. The result has been a series of books, Court Jesters, More Court Jesters, Return of the Court Jesters and his most recent book, Court Jesters Cartoons in which Oril- lia artist David Brown adds his illus- trative gifts. "We don't know any other cartoon book in the world in which the stories are true," MacDon- ald said recently. Writing comes naturally to Mac- Donald who started life as a reporter and at age 21 covered the entire Toronto court scene for the Globe and Mail in the mid -1950's after moving to Toronto from Halifax. Even after he entered law school he continued working at newspapers in the sum- mers. He got his law degree and began practicing in Hanover in 1963. "For 20 years, I did not write, but I kept talking all those years about doing it," he said. People in the law profession have always had thousands of funny stories but no time to put them to print, he said. "From that standpoint, what I do is unique. Nobody did it before and it's not to bloody likely anyone will do it when I croak." For their wedding Cindy Taziar and Ken Brown might have liked to have borrowed a little more blue and not had quite so much white. When the couple were to have been wed in January they became separated before they could even be married. Taziar and her bridesmaids were at her par- ents' home in Kirkton and Brown and his best man were in Stratford when a storm closed the roads. "We knew all morning we were going to have to postpone, but we kept putting it off," Taziar said. All morning guests kept calling to say they wouldn't be able to make it. Finally, two hours before the wedding, with her hair already done and in her wedding dress, Taziar start- ed calling local radio stations to have them pass along the word that the wedding was postponed. Meanwhile a group of friends of the couple in Stratford held a mock wedding which they video-taped and called "The Wedding That Should Have Been" with a man playing the bride and a woman playing the groom. "It was so hilarious it was almost worth it just for the video," Taziar said. "It helped break the bad mood. Everybody has been so great." The couple has planned a new wedding for the end of February. TOWNSMAN/JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1992 29