Jack Singer

Jack Singer was born in Calgary in 1917, one of four siblings: Hymie, Diane (Aceman), and Rosalie (Franks). Singer and his late wife, Shirley (née Cohen), had two sons, Alan Singer and the late Stephen Singer, plus five grandchildren: JL, Leslie, Adam, Quinn, and Carly.

His mother, Bella Singer, was born in 1880 in Radom, Poland, the eighth of eleven children. In 1905 she married Abraham Singer and the couple soon left to seek a better life in Canada. Bella first worked as a housekeeper at the Palliser Hotel, and then ran rooming houses during the early years, while Abraham began a number of successful business ventures. He was a scrap dealer, a second-hand store operator, a Banff hotelier, and later owned a number of farming and commercial realty operations. Singer’s immigrant parents used their savings to help hundreds of Jews escape persecution before and during the Second World War, and in doing so, instilled in their son an entrepreneurial and philanthropic spirit. The Singers required each person they brought over to bring somebody else, ready to work. Perhaps 1,600 Canadians now count themselves descended from Bella’s "pyramid scheme." [1]

In 1944, Singer married Shirley Cohen. At the urging of a close friend who was smitten with Cohen, Singer reluctantly agreed to date her, fully intending to hand off Cohen to his buddy. However, upon their first meeting, Singer fell madly in love and, instead of a matchmaker, he became a groom. It would not be long before the Singers were a fashionable power couple in Calgary social circles and, until her death in 2001, their impact upon the city’s culture was most significant.

Singer always held a special fondness for the entertainment business. Over the years, as he spent more time in Southern California, he became friends with many Hollywood actors, including Peter Lorre, Truman Capote, and George Burns.

By the age of 11, Singer was helping his mother with the books while collecting rents from the family owned rooming houses.

At the age of 17, Singer turned to business, and found a partner in Abraham (Avrum) Belzberg. Singer approached Belzberg with a business proposition, suggesting that they could buy the Foothills Building in Calgary for $60,000. That successful deal inspired them to form a partnership, United Management, a real estate business venture that continued for four decades thereafter and, at one point, held 200 pieces of property.

During the ‘50s and ‘60s, Singer and his older brother, Hymie, introduced Alberta to the strip mall. They would land anchor tenants such as banks and grocery stores, which would help them get financing and snap up land. They would go on to develop other commercial sites around Calgary and they built several Calgary landmarks such as the Southland Commercial Centre and Alberta Place. Ultimately, they expanded their real estate empire through Western Canada and into California, Arizona and Texas.

Singer also formed the Atlas Finance and Realty Corporation. Most famously known for providing loans to finance "One from the Heart," by Francis Ford Coppola, the company also owned 50 percent of Cornwall Petroleum and Resources Ltd. with oil properties in the United States and New Zealand.

An all-round athlete as a teenager, Singer was a star pitcher on the Central Memorial High School baseball team, a quarterback, and a Canadian Golden Gloves boxer with 17 straight wins. As a teenager, Singer won the Canadian lightweight amateur boxing championship, and had his sights set upon a professional career. However, injuries in the form of two perforated eardrums ultimately convinced him otherwise.

As a friend to athletes from all types of events, Singer raised money for WWII causes, bringing in top boxers for exhibition matches.

Singer co-owned a thoroughbred racehorse named Tyhawk. In 1959, Tyhawk set a world record over six-and-a-half furlongs at one minute 14.4 seconds at Turf Paradise Race Course in Phoenix. In 1960, Tyhawk won the Highlander Stakes at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, matching a course record of 1 minute 10.2 seconds over six furlongs on dirt. Tyhawk was inducted later into the British Columbia Horse Racing Hall of Fame, and has been considered "possibly the top BC sprinter of all time."

In 1997, Singer launched an unsuccessful $70 million bid for the Toronto Blue Jays, a Major League Baseball team.

• "Business People; From Reality to Movies, New York Times, 1981".
• "Calgary Tycoon Jack Singer was Larger than Life, The Globe and Mail, 2013".
• "L.A.'s Unlikeliest Angel: Looking Back on Jack Singer, MacLeans, 2013".
• "Prominent Real Estate Developer and Philanthropist Jack Singer Dies, CTV News, 2013".
• "Jack Singer, Obituary, Calgary Herald, 2013".