Fonds F0182 - Shirley Shea fonds

Writer and broadcaster Shirley Rose Shea was born in Sudbury, Ontario, on September 3, 1924. One of four children, Shea was the only one raised by her grandmother and aunts. Growing up, her grandmother emphasized the importance of waiting until she was older to get married so that she could figure out what she wanted out of life.

Shea served with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War from 1942 to 1944. During this time, Shea took a basic course in radio theory and signals and worked as a tower operator on bombing stations. After being discharged, she returned to Sudbury and got her first job in radio. Shea got her footing at CKSO, as a junior commentator. She was involved in a number of different programs over the years, including “Story Time with Anne Marie” and “Let’s go to the Birthday Party”, which were both programs for younger listeners in Northern Ontario. Shea would eventually move to Calgary, where she worked at CFAC.

In 1952, Shea was presented with the Canadian Women’s Press Club Award for the Best News Story. This award recognized her work for “The Hunting Season”, which detailed the psychological profiles of serial killers. The thesis for the story was that serial killers were hunters who got bored and turned to killing women and children.

In 1953, Shea moved to Victoria, where she joined CJVI. She wrote the Sunday night “Enterprise in Action” which was a dramatized documentary of the history of various British Columbian industries. Shea was the chief writer for the show, and traveled the length and breadth of the province to seek material for the show. “Enterprise in Action” was syndicated and broadcasted from 7 other radio stations.

In 1954, Shea returned to Ontario, where she worked CJOY Guelph, as a women’s commentator for 2 years. In 1956 she returned to Sudbury, where she worked at CKSO. In this role, Shea was involved in a number of different shows, from “Dream Time”, “The Sleepy Time Gal” and “Train Time” with Bill Knapp, where they would talk to travellers at the lunch counter located in the Sudbury train station.

Shea would eventually move to Toronto. Upon her arrival, she encountered some difficulty finding employment due to her age. Eventually she found work at General Motors, where she worked from 1958 to 1961. In 1960, Shea met Betty Burrowes from Australia, the woman that she would spend the rest of her life with. Within a few months, the two found a bachelor apartment on Lakeshore and moved in together. Shea and Burrowes were a part of the lesbian bar scene, and would frequent The Continental. In 1961, Shea started working for Eaton's Canada as a copywriter. She eventually became their Radio Director and had a popular radio show on shopping. Over the years, Shea produced and edited advertisements for radio and newspapers.

From 1963 to 1966, Shea worked at CHFI Toronto, where she was active on air, was involved in programming, writing, special events, panels, documentary narration, and productions. One of the programs she worked on was the Star Guide, a syndicated astrology show, which was broadcasted from stations across the country. The show eventually came to an end, when Shea realized that people were taking the horoscopes too seriously. From 1971 to 1974, Shea started her own small marketing and advertising company called Shirley Shea and Associates. In 1972, Shea’s A Not So Gay World: Homosexuality in Canada was published. This monograph was the first non-fiction book length study of homosexuality in Canada. Shea co-authored the book under her pen name Marion Foster with Kent Murray (pseud). The book was published by McClelland and Stewart. From 1978 to 1982, Shea worked as the Director of Retail and Cooperative advertising for the Radio Bureau of Canada. During her career, Shea won a news award for radio reporting, and wrote and produced two award winning documentary series in Western Canada. Shea retired in 1982 and began focusing on her writing. Shea and Burrowes moved to Chatsworth, Ontario, where Shea would spend the rest of her life.

In 1986, Shea’s lesbian crime novel Victims: A Pound of Flesh was published under her real name. The novel was published in Canada, England, Germany, and the Netherlands. Shea stated that the novel was written in a white hot rage that grew out of the murder of women and girls in the 1970s and 1980s, that signalled a war on women. Her objective was to highlight the failure of the judicial system that was woefully inadequate in dealing with violence against women. Victims did not initially sell very well, until it was picked up by a German feminist publishing house Orlanda Frauenverlag. Once that happened, the novel sold 40,000 copies in less than two years. In 1987, Shea’s The Monarchs are Flying was published, which was followed by Legal Tender in 1992. These two novels centred on Harriet Fordham Croft, a high powered lesbian lawyer turned private investigator. The Rabbit Hunter and One of Us Will Die were two of Shea’s novels that were only printed in German. Shea’s work was part of an emerging lesbian and women’s crime sub-genre, which was pioneered by the likes of Eve Zaremba.

Shirley Shea died on July 30, 1997 in Chatsworth, Ontario.