Robert Fulford (journalist) should not be confused with Robin Fulford.
Robert Marshall Blount Fulford (born February 13, 1932) is a Canadian journalist, magazine editor, and essayist. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.
Fulford was born in Ottawa, Ontario to Frances (Blount) Fulford and A. E. Fulford, a journalist and editor at Canadian Press. He grew up in The Beaches neighbourhood in Toronto and was a childhood friend of Glenn Gould.[1] He and his first wife, writer Jocelyn Jean Dingman Fulford (1930—1976), had two children, Margaret and James. Margaret Fulford is the University College Librarian at the University of Toronto and is married to Professor Jeffrey Rosenthal.[2]
His second wife is writer and former CBC Radio producer Geraldine Sherman, with whom he has two children, Sarah and Rachel. Sarah Fulford became editor-in-chief of Maclean's magazine in February 2022, after serving as editor-in-chief of Toronto Life magazine for 14 years. [3]
Fulford's media career began at the age of 16, while still in high school, when he worked for Toronto radio station CHUM reporting on high school sports and producing a weekly radio show for teenagers.[1]
In the summer of 1950, Fulford left high school and went to work for The Globe and Mail as a sports reporter. Subsequently, Fulford rose to various editorial positions at the newspaper before moving to The Toronto Star as a columnist (1959–1962, 1964–1968 and 1971–1987). From 1963 to 1964 he was a columnist and editor of the Reviews section at Maclean's magazine before returning to the Star. He covered Expo 67 for the newspaper and wrote a book on the world's fair, This Was Expo.[1]
From 1968 until 1987, Fulford was the editor of Saturday Night magazine and also wrote both a general column for the magazine under his own name, and film reviews under the pseudonym "Marshall Delaney".[1] He then worked as a columnist for the Financial Times of Canada (1988–1992), The Globe and Mail (1992–1999) and the National Post (1999–2019)
Fulford was critical of David Cronenberg's films and the usage of funding from the CFDC and wrote the article You Ought To Know How Bad This Film Is Because You Paid For It. Michael Spencer, the head of the CFDC, contacted Cronenberg about Fulford and Cronenberg stated that "only 100 people read Saturday Night magazine", but Spencer replied "Yes but it's the wrong hundred people".
Fulford worked as the co-host with Richard Gwyn of Realities, a long-form interview show on TVOntario (1982–1989) and as a regular panelist on CBC Radio's Morningside (1989–1993). In 1999, he delivered the Massey Lecture. In 1984, Fulford was awarded the honour of Officer of the Order of Canada.[4]
In his 1988 entry for The Canadian Encyclopedia, Douglas Fetherling described Fulford's politics as being on "the more conservative end of the liberal spectrum".[5]
Fulford is also a critic of literature, art and films. He has written extensively about the Canadian abstract art group Painters Eleven, its members (particularly William Ronald, Tom Hodgson, and Harold Town), and the Saskatchewan abstract artist Mashel Teitelbaum.