Ed Mirvish, Honest EdEd Mirvish, "Honest Ed" was born on July 25, 1914 in Colonial Beach, Virginia, the son of David, an immigrant from Lithuania, and Anna, an Austrian immigrant.
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The father of Ed Mirvish had a grocery store in Washington DC. After the grocery store went bankrupt the family moved to Toronto where eventually he opened a grocery store in the Toronto Jewish community, on Dundas Street. The family lived above the store, sharing their tiny apartment with a Hebrew school. His father died when Ed Mirvish was 15, so he dropped out of school to manage the store, becoming the sole support of his mother, brother and sister. The grocery business did not do well, and Ed closed shop to reopen as a dry-cleaner, in partnership with his childhood friend, Yale Simpson. The dry-cleaning business did no better than the grocery, however, and Ed soon abandoned it to take a regular job working as a produce manager and buyer for Loblaw's supermarket chain. In 1941 Ed Mirvish married Anne Macklin and in 1945, their only child, David, was born. During the War, Ed and Anne opened a dress shop known as "The Sport Bar". This business ran until 1948, when Ed cashed in Anne's insurance policy and opened a new business, a "bargain emporium" known as "Honest Ed's", stocked with odd lots of merchandise purchased at bankruptcy and fire sales. He quickly found success with his unique no-credit, no-service, no-frills model of doing business. "Honest Ed's" gradually expanded to fill an entire city block. Billing itself as "the world's biggest discount department store", it was soon bringing in millions of dollars a year. Every Christmas Mirvish gave away ten thousand pounds of free turkeys in his store to shoppers who stand in line for hours. A tradition since his 75th birthday has been the large annual party adjacent to the store, which attracts over 50,000 people for seven hours of free food, entertainment and children's rides. In addition to Honest Ed's Warehouse, Ed Mirvish is best known in Toronto for his live theatres. His first purchase was the Royal Alexandra Theatre, a popular Edwardian landmark that was slated for demolition. Mirvish purchased the building in 1962 and refurbished it, revitalizing the Toronto theatre scene. In 1993 built the Princess of Wales Theatre, the largest new theatre - and first privately financed theatre - in North America in thirty years. In 2001, Mirvish Enterprises entered into a management contract to run the Pantages Theatre, now renamed the Canon Theatre, for Clear Channel Entertainment. Today, he and his son David operate Mirvish Productions, which stages major touring theatre productions from Broadway and London and which has produced and/or co-produced the Canadian stagings of such recent hits as The Lion King, Mamma Mia!, The Producers and Hairspray. In 1982 Ed and David Mirvish bought London's Old Vic for a million dollars and spent four million renovating it. Under their management, The Old Vic was celebrated for winning more awards for its productions than any other single theatre in Britain; It never made money, however, and they sold it to its present owners, a theatre trust, in 1998. Mirvish took ill in 2003 with a severe case of pneumonia, and was away from public life until May, 2004. In July, 2005, he celebrated his 91st birthday with a lavish party, to which all of Toronto was invited, at Honest Ed's. Ed died on July 11, 2007. With information obtained from Wikipedia  Interpreter & Translation Services Canada Vacations - Order FREE Brochure! Find the best insurance rates Find the best deal and read reviews on Hotels in Canada Return to Famous Immigrants page Return from Ed Mirvish to The Happy Immigrant Homepage This website was build with the help of Site Build It 
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