Cayle Chernin and I were friends for fifty years. We were children together. She lived five houses down the street from me in Toronto. I called her my square root: her birthday was December 4th; mine the 16th. She was a year younger than me. Raised in the Canadian Maritimes, she wore little white gloves when she arrived at our elementary school. I thought she was peculiar. 

Cayle wanted to be an actress and studied with Marjorie Purvey, who had been my teacher when I was seven. Later, I would study with Eli Rill, a teacher at The Actors Studio in New York, who would fly into Toronto on weekends and teach marathon classes. I was his youngest student at fifteen and later sent Cayle to study with him. Their relationship eventually went beyond teacher and pupil. That’s when I knew Cayle had finally taken off her little white gloves.

I moved to England in 1969 and, when I returned to Canada for a visit two years later,  discovered that Cayle had just starred in a ground breaking movie, Don Shebib’s Goin’ Down the Road.

Two years later, I was in Los Angeles desperately unhappy in an ill-fated marriage. Cayle appeared out of nowhere and rescued me for a brief time. She, too, it turned out was suffering in the City of Angels and eventually returned to Toronto, where she carved out an extraordinary artistic life for herself as an actress, writer, teacher, producer, documentary film maker and a magnificent blogger.

I kept in touch with her over time through our mutual friend Rosie Shuster and through Cayle’s incredible blog.

I hadn’t seen her for a number of years when I took my then 9-year-old daughter Ethne to Toronto two years ago and introduced her to Cayle. They clicked instantly and became fast friends. Last summer, Ethne saw Cayle and her husband Dwight McFee on stage. A week later Cayle invited Ethne to sit in on a Monday scene class. The fifty year difference in their ages meant nothing to them. They were girlfriends.

I phoned Cayle on her birthday two months ago and was surprised when Rosie Shuster answered the phone. She broke the news to me about Cayle’s terminal cancer. I found it hard to believe as Cayle sounded so healthy and positive on the phone. And she had spearheaded and was starring in the sequel to Goin’ Down the Road, Don Shebib’s Down the Road Again.

That was when I decided Cayle would be my first guest on the audio version of PAID TO DREAM. And what a guest! You’d never know she was a month away from leaving us. Listen to this remarkable woman. Enjoy her stories and her attitude to life. This was the Cayle I loved and admired. I wanted Ethne to know her better when she was gone.

Cayle passed away yesterday - February 18, 2011 - but she lives on in this interview and her remarkable blogs.