We met in 1966 at the Hungarian Ball in Montreal. I could claim we met in the trenches during the McGill Daily crisis, occupying the Administration building and getting stoned together in the principal’s office. Or we could have met ducking the charge of Montreal’s finest while demonstrating against the Vietnam War outside the U.S. Embassy on what was then McGregor Street. We could have, since we were both at McGill at the time, but we didn’t. Alas, the sordid truth must be told. We were debutante escorts at the annual Montreal Hungarian Ball. To be more exact in the interest of full disclosure, we met at the dance rehearsals, stumbling through the intricacies of ballroom Waltz and Csardas. Parenthetically (and speaking strictly for myself), the rehearsals were not much help.

Both our parents were recent Jewish immigrants from Hungary, although by the time we met in ’66, his were solidly established, having arrived in ’56, whereas mine were just off the boat, landing in la belle province in ’63. By then, Mr. Barna Sr. had prestigious standing in the Hungarian community, not only because he had a furniture and appliance store on St-Laurent (it was called St. Lawrence then), but because he was the only one in town licensed to send hard-currency support packages to the relatives back home via an obscure arrangement with the then-Communist regime. He happily advertised this fact in Menorah, the local Jewish-Hungarian paper. So if you had family in need of help back in the old country, Mr. Barna Sr. could, for a reasonable fee, arrange a transfer of funds.

My own parents opened a Hungarian delicatessen/pastry shop on Victoria, where I spent most of my weekends clad in an apron behind the counter, slicing rye bread and salami.

In the meantime, at the other end of town, Barna Jr., (hereafter to be known as Laci [pronounced Lotzi]), worked weekends in a sophisticated environment, selling furniture and appliances wearing civvies. How I envied him!

I envied him for something else, too – his sense of humor. Laci was funny. At 17 (actually, I was 17; Laci, I should point out is older – he was 18 by then), I took myself very seriously indeed. I had ideas about changing the world, and about being at the cusp of a cultural revolution that would propel society to take qualitative forward leaps. It took me most of my life to learn how not to take myself seriously. But Laci knew how to do that back then. He was funny, really funny. And he was laid back and cool, enjoying the flow of the breeze. Which is why it came as a shock to me, years later, when, as a comic at Yuk Yuks, he bombed. Others, like Jim Carrey and Howie Mandel, took off, but Laci ended up going back to school to get an MA somewhere flaky in B.C.

Years passed. Laci returned to Montreal and taught at a CEGEP, where, quite appropriately, he once asked me to guest lecture about movies before I had made any. Our paths parted for a while, as Laci worked in fringe theater, where he was entangled with puppets. I have discreetly refrained from pressing him for gory details about this particular chapter.

By around ’80, he decided that the grass was greener on the other side, so he started making films. Strangely, this free spirit from the ’60s, with his self-deprecating sense of humor and knack for storytelling, didn’t bother with fiction or comedy. No movies or TV for him back then. Laci was intent on making documentaries. We are not talking about the garden variety, either. Not some titillating epic about the history of sex or teenage reefer madness. Laci was making labor documentaries, working with union leaders like Bob White.

These were the boom years of Canadian film. From the early ’80s to ’90, financing became increasingly plentiful for domestic production, what with the rebirth of the $4-million-a-year Canadian Film Development Corporation as Telefilm Canada, the advent of tax shelters, the creation of the OFDC (now OMDC), SODEC, B.C. Film and a variety of other funds.

At the same time, in an unprecedented (and as we now know, non-recurring) and aberrant act, the CRTC for once got tough with the broadcasters about Canadian drama, which resulted in a real market for domestic production.

But my friend Laci was nowhere to be seen. He was purging his bourgeois conscience documenting the struggles of the working class. Yet he was all too familiar with the ins and outs of fiction. In fact, perhaps it was his own close personal experience with fiction that propelled his need to purge himself. You see, for a while, Laci stopped being Laszlo Barna so that he could be a Manhattan schoolteacher called Marty Seligman. To be precise, a substitute teacher. But that’s a story he should tell some day, now that he has made his peace with fiction.

As Pierre Trudeau famously quoted Khalil Gibran, no doubt the universe shall unfold as it should. And for Laci, it did. Labor union films led him to the story of Mother Trucker, Diana Kilmury. That, in turn, led him back to me.

It was the early ’90s, and I was CEO of the now publicly traded Alliance Communications. Laci needed a home for his first drama project and I needed Laci. We had a considerable international sales force, with offices in Paris, London and L.A., massive in-house development and production infrastructure, all the capital necessary and lots of hungry broadcasters around the world to feed.

I had my hands full trying to build and run this mushrooming monster and no longer had the time for the tyrannical exigencies of creative production. Finding dependable producers to execute all the programs that we could finance and sell, on the other hand, was proving a daunting task. By ‘producer,’ I mean the real thing. A storyteller first and foremost, one with an instinct about how to engage an audience, one with taste and class, one who is dependable, who knows how to inspire others, how to lead and how to work 24/7 when needed.

Enter my old friend Laci. Having cleansed his conscience of Marty Seligman’s sins, he was ready to rock ‘n’ roll. First came the Diana Kilmury TV movie, ostensibly made for the CBC but snatched up immediately by networks all over, including Turner in the U.S. Then I asked him to help out and take on a couple of Alliance’s long-in-development TV movies, get rid of the deadwood, keep what was good and get them made. He did. These were At the End of the Day: The Sue Rodriguez Story and Milgaard. Both were substantial hits worldwide, notwithstanding their distinctly Canadian nature.

Then he mentioned that CBC had commissioned Chris Haddock and him to develop a series called Da Vinci’s Inquest. I had no clue what it was about, but I knew that if Laci was doing it, I wanted it for Alliance. So, in exchange for some development money, we made a distribution deal. (At least, that’s how I remember it. He claims he doesn’t remember taking the money, but trust me, he did. Those drugs in the ’60s can do funny things to your memory).

This pretty much brings us to the current chapter of the Laszlo Barna saga. The chapter you are all familiar with – he is Canada’s premier producer of television drama, series and long form. He is the leading supplier to private and public networks, conventional and specialties alike. His well-deserved awards and distinctions have forced him to seek additional offices for the wall space. He has won so many that he now escapes to the South Pacific during the Geminis in an attempt to duck having to accept more.

He is the poster child for everything that works in the Canadian television production business. He is the chair of the CFTPA, the spokesman for the whole industry, respected, applauded, well-liked and rich enough to finally get his teeth fixed. Internationally, he can dance with the best of them. I alone know why. It was those rehearsals for the Montreal Hungarian Ball.

Bravo Laci!

Robert Lantos is Canada’s pre-eminent producer through his Toronto company Serendipity Point Films. Recent productions include the features Being Julia by Istvan Szabo and Where the Truth Lies by Atom Egoyan. He is also coproducing the forthcoming comedy TV series G-Spot with Barna-Alper Productions.