The woman blinked and then began to laugh. When she recovered, a buzzer was pressed and Saul was told that a person would be right out to attend to his request. The man who soon emerged introduced himself as Milton Sperling, son-in-law of Warner Bros. founder Harry Warner. After some chuckling at Saul’s explanation, he confirmed that a meeting with Jack wasn’t going to happen. But he could offer him a chance to check out the premises. “I never met Jack or Harry Warner; I never got into the inner sanctum at all. But I was invited in to wander around, any time I wanted, in the studio lot. Those connections in that studio were actually very valuable to me. While wandering in there, I came across and chatted with Cary Grant as he drove his Cord convertible beige car,” said Saul. It was a marvelous time, and that made it for him. Show business, one way or another, come hell or high water — it has to be my life, he thought feverishly.8
Unfortunately, life had other plans for Saul Holiff, and he soon fell ill with a severely infected wisdom tooth. In unbearable pain, he weighed his options. To get treatment would blow his cover — he was permitted to wear a uniform for only thirty days following his discharge, and it was already weeks past that point. He was in the United States illegally, wearing his uniform illegally, perusing the Canteen illegally, with a pocketful of illegal passes. No, he was certain that if he attempted to go to a veteran’s hospital under the guise of warranting treatment in the States, he would be discovered.
With a heavy heart he decided to return to Canada, consoling himself with the thought that he could surely find his way back to California when he felt up to it. In the meantime, he decided to follow through on his aspiration to become a radio disc jockey, and secured an audition with London’s CFPL Radio. By the time he arrived back home and went for treatment at Westminster Hospital, it turned out that not just one but all of his wisdom teeth were infected. During the subsequent painful extraction, the dentist — a tiny man with bifocal glasses who operated on clients while standing atop a little cart — cut down into his jawbone and muscle. Forty-eight hours later, Saul could barely open his mouth. “I was so unsure of myself, so certain that if I postponed the audition that I would screw it up and that would be the end of it, that I went and had the audition and I spoke, virtually strangling on every word,” remembered Saul. “I didn’t get the job. They waited until I was finished before they threw me out, mind you.”9
The failed audition marked the death of that particular dream, but not the end of his Hollywood ambitions. It was impossible to forget the way those weeks in California had illuminated his imagination. Though terribly insecure, Saul possessed a unique ability to bluff, to project an outward show of confidence, and the risks involved in travelling alone had only further developed this trait. Upon his return to London, he began to hone another skill that would take him even further: the art of self-promotion. Taking a page from his father’s book in how he had pursued chess coverage in the media, Saul contacted the local newspaper and it subsequently ran a piece on him and his adventures, titled “Blue Uniform Key to Hollywood Visit.” “Those people out there are the most willing and most generous hosts one could hope for or imagine,” he told the reporter.10
In the ensuing years, Saul drifted through a variety of jobs with moderate success, but none held deep appeal. In 1947, he completed a year-long accounting course and worked briefly as a bookkeeper for a plumbing and appliances company before securing a position as a waiter at the Windsor Hotel in Hamilton, the first restaurant-bar in Ontario to legally reintroduce liquor following the prohibition. Though he didn’t receive any training, he managed to save a thousand dollars within a year. “It was a disaster, but I made a lot of money,” Saul recalled. Despite the cash, Saul was not particularly service-oriented, so he answered a help-wanted ad posted by a shoe salesman and became his driver, hitting stores all over Ontario and Quebec. It somehow felt natural to be on the road; the endless driving suited his directionless mindset, and connections flourished with a variety of business owners throughout the province. But if he needed security or safety, there was none to be found at home. For whatever reason, his father made it clear he was not welcome to return.
“Not only myself, but mother also is fully convinced that if you ever decide to come and stay home, your life will be so miserable that you will be glad to leave as fast as you came,” Joel wrote to Saul in May of 1947. “I am not referring to weekends. You can come home any weekend you wish, but as for staying here permanently, I warn you accordingly, and I mean it. Now it’s up to you to act accordingly.”
London was clearly not an option, so using the contacts made through the driving job, within two years Saul went into business for himself. He bought his first car, a brand new 1949 Chevrolet Coach, and sold ladies’ dresses wholesale throughout northern Ontario. But he soon received another letter from his parents, and this one requested that he come home immediately.11
“It finally happened — my father had a heart attack after almost forty years of excellent health. They want me to go home and take over. It makes me think of a few years ago when he told me not to come home from Hamilton. Then, I needed moral support and strength more than anything,” Saul wrote in his diary. It sent him into a deep reflection about the nature of home, family, and the strained relationship with his father.
“I never heard the word [love] when I was growing up. It made me feel acutely uncomfortable when I did,” he later mused. “We never saw a display of affection, never experienced hugs and all that stuff. It just wasn’t part of our family scene. Being properly inhibited was. I always thought people using the word love were exhibitionists, or phony, or both. Something Holden Caulfield here. But if I thought about it at all, and if anybody ever said that they loved me, the statement was always suspect in my mind.”
Despite mixed feelings, he did return, and shouldered the small clothing business his father had nursed along since 1933. Saul renamed it Store at Your Door and rented a showroom and some facilities.12
The business did well, and Saul both made a living for himself and supported his parents at the same time. But it was both a blessing and a curse. For the next five years, Store at Your Door was just that — Saul would conduct business at customers’ homes, and he hated it. In 1956, having saved enough money, Saul renamed the business Saul Holiff Kustom Klothes and opened a showroom above a furrier downtown on King Street. With an innovative flourish, he christened the front part of the loft The Swatch Bar, and fashioned an area where customers could relax while perusing books of fabric samples. In the back, he carved out a tiny bachelor pad to cut down on costs. Weekly newspaper ads carried a variety of the catchy slogans and phrases he coined, such as: “If Your Clothes Aren’t Becoming to You, You Should Be Coming to Us.”
Saul Holiff greeting patrons at his Swatch Bar (London, Ontario, 1957).
Inexplicably, it was at this point that Saul fell into a deep depression. The store was up and running, but he had gone into debt to open it, borrowing money from his brother-in-law Sam, among others. The anxiety around this was crippling, and his tranquilizers weren’t cutting through it. Consumed by darkness, he wrote out a Last Will and Testament by hand on his Holiff’s custom stationery and then penned a suicide note. “Please go up the back stairs. You shall find my door open, and inside, my body. Please be kind enough to inform my brother, so that he in turn might inform my parents,” he wrote. On a separate sheet, he drafted a note to his family.
June 13, 1956
To my family —
Please forgive me!!!
I guess I’m a misfit or just a plain fool. Whether I am, life seems to have become too involved for me. I’ve caused you enough pain and upset. If anything or anybody is to blame for my situation, I suppose the fault is with myself.
Have courage to face this last source of unhappiness that I shall inflict upon you.
All my love,
Saul.13