THURSDAY,AUGUST1,2019 | THE GLOBE AND MAILO B17
W
illiam Obront, a Montreal meat merchant
who once made front-page headlines
across Canada after a public inquiry named
him as a key money launderer for the Co-
troni Mafia clan, has died.
He had been mixed up in three major scandals in the
1960s and 1970s, but vanished from the spotlight after
gettingalengthysentencefordrugtraffickinginFlorida.
His death in Miami-Dade County – on Oct. 12, 2017, at
the age of 93 – was not reported at the time, but The
Globe and Mail confirmed it through Florida state re-
cords.
Hewasabehind-the-scenesfigureintheGerdaMuns-
inger case, a Cold War scandal featuring sex, politicians
and the spectre of Soviet spying.
He was also linked to Robert Samson, the rogue
Mountie whose botched attempt to plant a bomb even-
tually led to the creation of the Canadian Security In-
telligence Service (CSIS).
Lastly, Mr. Obront was a prominent character in the
hearings of a Quebec inquiry into organized crime,
which publicized his ties to the mob and heard allega-
tions that tainted meat had been sold at Expo 67.
“William Obront: Here’s a name that for years has
continually emerged as much in police circles as before
the public,” the inquiry, known by its
French acronym, CECO, said in a 315-page
report that focused on Mr. Obront.
The 1977 report said Mr. Obront was a
“money mover” for the Montreal Mafia
and its leaders, Vincenzo Cotroni and his
successor, Paolo Violi.
Mr. Obront, who was nicknamed Obie,
told the inquiry that he had donated to
the Quebec Liberals, backing premier Robert Bourassa
in the party leadership race against Claude Wagner.
A former justice minister, Mr. Wagner had been the
firsttoraiseMr.Obront’snamepubliclywhenhealleged
in the legislature in 1967 that organized crime had infil-
trated Expo 67.
Eight years later, when he took the stand at the CECO
inquiry, Mr. Obront became a household name as Que-
beckers learned of the tainted-meat affair.
CECO testimony showed that meat unfit for human
consumption had been sold at Expo 67 and that firms
owned by Mr. Cotroni and Mr. Obront shipped spoiled
sausages.
Mr.ObrontcamefromafamilyofbutchersofRussian
ancestry. One of the three children of Jack and Becky
Obront, he was born in Montreal on March 20, 1924.
He started working at his uncle Ben’s butcher shop in
the Atwater Market when he was 17 or 18, according to
Ben’s son, Morty.
“My father loved him because he was a happy-go-
lucky guy who always had a smile plastered on his face,”
Morty told The Montreal Gazette in 1976.
Morty added that “Obie” was also nicknamed Dia-
mond Jim, because of his lavish spending and love for
gambling. He said William once got a $10,000 loan from
his father-in-law to start his own business, but lost the
money in a dice game.
By 1949, Mr. Obront owned his own retail outlet and
four years later incorporated a meat-packing company.
Withinafewyears,hecametotheattentionofthepolice
as a shareholder in two nightclubs known as mob han-
gouts.
Around that time, a German woman named Gerda
Heseler tried to settle in Canada. She had a criminal re-
cord and past contacts with Soviet intelligence, but
gained entry by applying under her married name,
Munsinger.
She worked as an escort in Montreal, associated with
underworld figures and had an affair with Pierre Sévig-
ny, the associate defence minister in John Diefenbaker’s
Conservative government.
Mr. Diefenbaker ordered Mr. Sévigny to end the rela-
tionship after the RCMP warned that the minister had
left himself open to blackmail or spying. The issue
wasn’t revealed until 1966 when the Liberals were in
power and taunting the Conservative opposition.
Mr. Obront later admitted before the CECO that he
knewMs.Munsinger.“ShewasgoingoutwithsomeoneI
knew, a politician,” he testified.
Infact,hewasveryclosetoher,closeenoughtoplaya
role in one of the great scoops in Canadian journalism.
When the scandal erupted, Ms. Munsinger was
thought to have died of cancer. The late journalist Rob-
ert Reguly said he spoke to Mr. Obront, who unwittingly
revealed she was still alive. Mr. Reguly, then working for
theTorontoStar,foundheratherflatinMunich.Hesaid
that she told him “I thought you had been sent by Willie
Obront to kill me.”
Mr. Obront’s connection to Ms. Munsinger wasn’t
publicly revealed until the CECO was set up in 1972 and
began holding televised hearings.
At the time, he declared average annual income of
$33,000. The CECO report said that in fact he was an
underworld financier who controlled nine bank ac-
counts. Millions of dollars were deposited in those ac-
counts, from illicit sources such as gambling or loan
sharking, the report said.
By his own admission, one of his bank accounts was
in the name of his chauffeur, Léo Robidoux, who could
hand out cheques for him.
While the CECO hearings were unfolding, on the
nightofJuly26,1974,anRCMPConstable–
Mr. Samson – was severely injured while
he tried to place a bomb outside the Mon-
trealhomeofMelvynDobrin,presidentof
the Steinberg supermarket chain.
AninquirybyfirecommissionerCyrille
Delâge heard that in the preceding hours,
Mr. Samson had visited Mr. Robidoux, the
Obront chauffeur.
Mr. Samson said he had come to offer condolences to
Mr. Robidoux’s wife, who had lost her brother. He told
conflicting versions of the incident and was eventually
sentenced to seven years in jail.
During his trial, he blurted that he had done “much
worse”fortheRCMPanddisclosedthathehadbeenpart
of a team that burglarized the offices of a Quebec news
agency. His admission lifted the lid on theRCMP’s illegal
operations against Quebec separatists. The ensuing up-
roar led to two public inquiries and the creation of CSIS
to take over domestic spying from the RCMP.
Meanwhile, Mr. Obront left Canada, ignoring a sub-
poena to appear before Mr. Delâge’s inquiry.
Moving to Florida, he applied for U.S. citizenship. Ac-
cording to the CECO report, one of the two men who
vouched for him, Barry Ressler, was an associate of the
famous mobster Meyer Lansky.
Mr. Obront became a U.S. national in November, 1975.
Under the law at the time, he lost his Canadian citizen-
ship. Back in Quebec, he was charged with fraud and
forgery and Canadian authorities sought his extradi-
tion.
He left for Costa Rica, but was expelled. In May, 1976,
under police escort, he was flown back to Montreal. He
refused to testify again before the CECO. In the fall of
1976, he pleaded guilty to the fraud and forgery charges.
Because he had forfeited his Canadian citizenship, he
was expelled to the United States after his sentence. In
Florida, he was arrested in 1983 as part of a ring traffick-
ing cocaine and tranquilizer pills dubbed “the Canadian
Connection.”
Found guilty and sentenced to 20 years, he then
learned that U.S. authorities had revoked his American
citizenship.
From the Lewisburg high-security penitentiary in
Pennsylvania, he tried to apply for his Canadian citizen-
ship certificate but was turned down. He then pet-
itioned the Federal Court, but was unsuccessful.
Mr. Obront, inmate number 12576-004, was released
in March, 2002. At the time of his death, he was living at
a retirement community north of Miami. His death cer-
tificate said he was a restaurant owner.
He was predeceased by his wife, Sarah Obront.MONTREALBUTCHERWAS
ABANKERFORTHEMAFIA
HewaslinkedtorogueMountieRobertSamsonandimplicated
intheExpo67taintedmeataffairandtheGerdaMunsingerscandal,
involvingsexandthespectreofSovietspyingMr.Obrontwasa
prominentcharacter
inthehearingsof
aQuebecinquiry
intoorganizedcrime.WilliamObront,left,seeninaMontrealcourtin1976,beganworkingasabutcherinhislateteens.Areport
stemmingfromaQuebecinquiryintoorganizedcrimein1977saidhewasa‘moneymover’forthemob.Inquiry
testimonyalsoshowedacompanyheranshippedtaintedsausagesthatweresoldatExpo67.THECANADIANPRESSWILLIAMOBRONT
CRIMINAL,93TUTHANHHA
OBITUARIES
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arold Prince, a Broadway director and pro-
ducer who pushed the boundaries of musical
theatre with such groundbreaking shows as
The Phantom of the Opera,Cabaret,Company
andSweeney Toddand won a staggering 21 Tony Awards,
has died. Mr. Prince was 91.
Mr. Prince’s publicist Rick Miramontez said he died
Wednesday after a brief illness in Reykjavik.
Mr.PrincehelpedcreatesomeofBroadway’smosten-
during musical hits, first as a producer of such shows as
Damn Yankees,West Side StoryandFiddler on the Roof,and
laterasadirector,overseeingsuchlandmarkmusicalsas
Cabaret,Company,Sweeney ToddandThe Phantom of the
Opera.
Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber told the Associated Press
thatitwasimpossibletooverestimatetheimportanceof
Mr. Prince to musical theatre. “All of modern musical
theatre owes practically everything to him.”
InadditiontoMr.LloydWebber,Mr.Prince,knownby
friends as Hal, worked with some of theatre’s best-
known composers and lyricists, including Leonard
Bernstein,JerryBockandSheldonHarnick,JohnKander
and Fred Ebb and, most notably, Stephen Sondheim.
During his more than 50-year career, Mr. Prince re-
ceived a record 21 Tony Awards, including two special
ones–in1972,whenFiddlerbecameBroadway’slongest-
running musical, and 1974, for a revival ofCandide.
It was with Mr. Sondheim that Mr. Prince developed
his most enduring creative relationship. He producedA
Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum(1962),the
firstBroadwayshowforwhichMr.Sondheimwroteboth
music and lyrics.
They cemented their partnership in 1970 withCom-
pany. Mr. Prince produced and directed the innovative
musical that followed the travails of Bobby, a perpetual
New York bachelor ever-searching for the right woman.
Companywas followed in quick succession byFollies
(1971), which Mr. Prince co-directed with Michael Ben-
nett;A Little Night Music(1973);Pacific Overtures(1976);
andSweeney Todd(1979).
Mr. Prince was mentored by two of the theatre’s most
experiencedprofessionals–directorGeorgeAbbottand
producer Robert E. Griffith. “I went to work for George
Abbott in 1948 and I was fired on Friday that year from a
television job in his office,” Mr. Prince wrote in his mid-
life autobiography,Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-Six
Years in the Theatre.“IwasrehiredthefollowingMonday,
and I’ve never been out of work since.”
Born in New York on Jan. 30, 1928, Mr. Prince was the
son of affluent parents, for whom Saturday matinees in
the theatre with their children were a regular occur-
rence. A production ofJulius Caesarstarring Orson
Welles when he was 8 taught him there was something
special about theatre.
After a stint in the Army during the Korean War, he
servedasstagemanageronMr.Abbott’s1953production
ofWonderful Town, starring Rosalind Russell.
In 1957, Mr. Prince didWest Side Story, a modern-day
versionofRomeo and Juliet.Directedandchoreographed
byJeromeRobbins,withascorebyMr.BernsteinandMr.
Sondheim, it was acclaimed.
Yet even its success was dwarfed byFiddler on the Roof
(1964), which Mr. Prince produced and Mr. Robbins di-
rected and choreographed. Set in Czarist Russia, the
Bock-Harnick musical starred Zero Mostel as the Jewish
milkmanforcedtoconfrontchallengestohiswayoflife.
Mr.PrincegothisfirstopportunitytodirectonBroad-
wayin1962.Themusical,A Family Affair,gaveMr.Prince
a chance to work with composer John Kander. Four
years later, Mr. Kander would provide the music for one
ofMr.Prince’sbiggestsuccesses,Cabaret,basedonChris-
topher Isherwood’sThe Berlin Stories.
Cabaretestablished Mr. Prince as a director of first
rank. With its use of a sleazy master of ceremonies (por-
trayed by Joel Grey), the musical juxtaposed its raunchy
nightclub numbers with the stories of people living in
Berlin as the Nazis rose to power in the 1930s.
As he became more interested in directing, he with-
drew from producing altogether.
Among his more notable achievements wereOn the
Twentieth Century(1978) and two of Mr. Lloyd Webber’s
biggesthits,Evita(1979)andThe Phantom of the Opera,in
London (1986), New York (1988) and around the world.
Mr. Prince worked for Canadian impresario Garth
Drabinsky, overseeing productions of the Tony-winning
Kiss of the Spider Woman(1993), a lavish remounting of
Show Boat(1994) and a short-lived revival ofCandide
(1997).
Healsoworkedasanoperadirector,withproductions
at the Metropolitan Opera House, San Francisco Opera
andmore,anddirectedtwofilms,Something for Everyone
(1970)andascreenversionofA Little Night Music(1977).
He leaves his wife of 56 years, Judy; his daughter,
Daisy; his son, Charles; and his grandchildren, Phoebe,
Lucy, and Felix.ASSOCIATEDPRESSBroadwaygiant
wasinstrumentalto
20th-centurytheatre
MARKKENNEDYNEW YORKHaroldPrinceRICHARDDREW/ASSOCIATEDPRESSHAROLDPRINCE
STAGEDIRECTOR,PRODUCER,91TosubmitaLivesLived:
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