People – August 20, 1979

They say that memory is a tricky thing. Yes, I have Mandela effects moments, too. This one was revealed to me by Michele Finney’s first husband, John Brower, in a comment attached to my post about her. He says that he doubts that she ever lived in Alberta. So I went looking through the Maclean’s Magazine archives and found this bit of gossip:

For four years in the early 1960s Michele Finney cavorted with Alan Hamel and Howard the Turtle on the teeny-bopper TV series Razzle Dazzle. Every weekday, the pubescent males across the our country went into an after-school daze as Finney grew up before the cameras creating the same sort of havoc Annette Funicello caused on The Mickey Mouse Club when she visibly began to mature. “We had to start cutting out some of the magic skits because they looked like bondage,” laughs Finney, who, at 29, feels it is time to drop the Razzle image. “I’m very proud of the show, but that was 15 years ago. I can’t live on that.” Now living in Toronto with her 10-year-old daughter, Finney has been busy making commercials for everything from toothpaste to garbage bags. This month she begins work on her first feature film, Never Trust An Honest Thief, in which she shares billing with Michael Murphy and Orson Welles. Needless to say, Finney is excited by the company she will be keeping, and plans to be on the set every day “whether I’m needed or not.” Her first task, however, will be learning to control a 1953 army jeep that her character uses as a delivery van. “It’s not bad to drive, except the brakes don’t work and there isn’t any first gear,” she announced after her first ride around the block.

Maclean’s/People August 20, 1979

OK, all right, I don’t remember reading this paragraph before. So, the article I was referring to must be from a different magazine. (My mother had sent me the clipping, so I know it exists, but my memory is unclear.)

And, yes, John Brower, you do know your own life story better than anyone else.