The family and friends of Tony Roman gathered in Montreal June 14 to pay tribute to the Quebec film producer, scriptwriter and singer, who died June 8 after a battle with cancer.

Roman, described in the French-language daily La Presse as ‘one of the driving forces’ of Quebec popular music in the 1960s and 1970s, began his singing career at 17 when he founded the group Tony and the Tip Tops. His record company, Canusa, produced music for well-known performers including Nanette Workman, Patrick Zabé, Johnny Farago and Les Baronets.

In the 1970s, Roman, whose real name was Antonio D’Ambrosio, dropped his singing career and moved to California. He returned 15 years later to work for Montreal’s Malofilm. He conceived the 1999 feature comedic drama Ladies Room, on which he was a producer and composer, and later came up with the idea for Guy A. Lepage’s Camping sauvage, on which he was one of the producers. The comedy was the highest-grossing Quebec film of 2004, taking in $4.4 million at the box office.