Pickle Barrel
WE ALL HAVE a list of things we want to
do before we die. Hang-gliding,
skydiving, swimming with sharks are
usually popular options, but as
Valentine’s Day approaches there is
only one thing on TV show host Liza
Fromer’s wish list for that day.
“What I would do is, oh my God, absolutely nothing,” she exclaims laughing. “Because I’m so busy all the time … generally my fantasy is my couch and maybe a foot massage.”
As she makes herself comfortable in the reading area of a downtown coffee shop not far from her Annex home, waiting on a cappuccino, she confesses to being a little frantic the last few days.
“My baby had a fever this weekend, so I was calling my sister-in-law — who’s a doctor — constantly on the phone. I was calling my friend who has three kids saying, ‘Yours are all alive, right? How did you manage?’” Fromer says and laughs. “He’s fine now,” she adds, “I think most people, including me, are spastic when they’re a firsttime mother.”
Fevers aside, Fromer is a relatively grounded, down-to-earth individual. She has to be in her line of work.
The 37-year-old mother, wife and host of Slice Network’s The List is in the business of helping people cross off long-sought-after goals on their ultimate list of things to do before they die.
That includes everything from a 39- year-old grandmother taking a shot at burlesque dancing, to an untrained singer belting the Canadian national anthem in front of 20,000 Leafs fans. Scary stuff, but Fromer is the rock her guests depend on during some of the most nerve-racking moments of their lives.
“Liza has great energy,” explains Joanne Cross, senior producer of The List. “It’s her empathy. She always has a genuine interest in the public’s dreams.… She’s very approachable, not like other TV hosts people think you can’t go up to on the street.”
The show dynamics are rather straightforward. Viewers write letters to the producers, describing in detail their “list” item — some as simple as making a flavour of ice cream and others as wild as singing on stage with rock band INXS. The producers choose the lucky few based on such criteria as how genuinely excited the people seem about doing whatever they’re asking to do.
Once the decision is made, Fromer puts together a comprehensive plan of action, sometimes calling in favours from industry friends or powerful connections, and then boom, she shows up on the person’s doorstep and sets the wheels in motion.
“It’s the most incredible opportunity to be able to say to someone, ‘Now’s the time,’ and to see the look on their face.… You don’t really realize, no matter how frivolous it seems, it’s real to someone,” explains Fromer, admitting that, although she’s not a crier per se, she’s been caught weeping more than once while filming the show.
Fromer got her start in broadcasting in 1989 when she enrolled in the radio and television broadcasting program at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, and it was her on-the-job experience at Q107, first as a volunteer and later as a full-time staffer, that led her to fall in love with the world of on-air.
“Looking back, I almost feel guilty because I remember there were so many kids, when we were there for [entrance] interviews and all that, who had done so much and tried so hard, and I just kind of fluked into it and got lucky,” says Fromer. “But the luckiest part was that I turned out to really love it and at times be good at it.”
Much like her education path, her career path wasn’t carefully plotted out either. Fromer says opportunities just always seemed to come to her.
While still in school and juggling responsibilities at Q107, Fromer landed a gig hosting a video game show on YTV. Following graduation, the budding broadcaster found her way (after a short interim as a waitress) to the Weather Network for two years before heading to Calgary for three years as a news broadcaster and reporter.
Moving away from her family and friends to a city where she didn’t know a single person was something Fromer cites as a major career challenge.
“I’m glad I did it because I’m glad I had those skills. But I discovered [news reporting] wasn’t for me. I just didn’t like the fact that you could be reporting on something that could be life changing for someone, something very tragic, and then just leave it and move on. It was hard for me to do that.”
Then she learned of an opening for the coveted co-host spot on Citytv’s Breakfast Television (BT). She sent off her tape and received a callback. Her scheduled job interview: Five a.m., Sept. 11, 2001.
“The producer and I just hit it off. We were sitting in the boardroom talking, talking, talking … then on the bank of monitors we heard someone say a plane went into the World Trade Center … then we heard in the background a second one. The whole interview changed from employer to potential employee to two people going, ‘What the hell is going on?’”
During her almost five years at BT, Fromer says the cast’s camaraderie and the show’s spontaneity were two of the aspects she came to enjoy most about the production.
“I do love live TV or live radio, and anyone who’s done it knows that there’s a certain type of rush you get from it that can’t be replicated.”
It was during her BT stint that Fromer ran into future husband Josh Gerstein in the classic “at the bar” type meeting.
“I followed him around for about an hour, finally got close to him, started chatting, and then we just went out ever since,” Fromer explains.
“I was on that night,” recalls Gerstein. “I asked all the right questions and said all the right things. I remember she told me about a coffee shop in her neighbourhood that was really good, and I said to her friend, ‘I think your friend just asked me out on a date.’”
Eleven months later Gerstein asked for Fromer’s hand in marriage. But before they took that step she spent a year converting to Judaism.
“My husband’s faith meant a lot to him,” she says. “I did like the idea of having one faith in the household.”
The couple was married in September 2005, and not long after they were pregnant with Samson.
As Fromer’s life changed from single woman on the go to married with a child, her lifestyle didn’t mesh well with BT’s early morning wake-up calls: “It was very hard for me to deal with those hours. Up at four, in at five, I thought, ‘I have a husband who doesn’t get home from work until sixthirty, seven p.m. If I’m going to bed at eight, when am I going to see him? We’ll never have a meal together.’”
Even now, with a more flexible schedule and regular hours, Fromer feels the pressures of the working woman’s balancing act she describes as “juggling razor-sharp swords that are greased up.” Her husband agrees. “We have to be really organized in terms of our schedules,” explains Gerstein. “Sometimes her schedule’s not as predictable as mine.”
Nonetheless, with the help of a trusted nanny, the young couple seems to be settling into their new life of parenthood just fine. And residing in our neighbourhood plays a large part.
“Growing up in Kitchener, Toronto was just so vibrant and exciting to me, and I think that the neighbourhood that I’ve chosen to live in is a perfect example of that.… The Village is just such a wonderful community. There are so many different restaurants, shops, foods and all the different people. I just love how representative it is of Toronto as a whole.”
Fromer, who lives in the Bathurst
Street and St. Clair Avenue area, is a
fan of the area’s community-oriented
spirit.
“Part of the reason we chose the
neighbourhood we’re in is because it
felt almost like a small town in the
middle of Toronto. There are big, huge
trees; lots of other kids; beautiful
parks. I looked around our area, and I
said, ‘My boy can ride a bike some day
in this neighbourhood and be fine!’” 
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