Mel Lastman - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Lastman was born in Toronto in 1933, the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland. He began his sales career as a child, hawking fruit and vegetables at his family's Kensington Market grocery store.

He met Marilyn Bornstein when he was 16 and she was 13, and they were married five years later. He left school after Grade 12 and, with Marilyn's help, got a job at a College Street furniture store. He quickly established himself as a successful salesman. He switched to selling appliances and promoted himself as "Mr. Laundry" (alias the "Bad Boy"). He opened a small frame building at Kennedy Road and Eglinton in Scarborough, selling used applicances, and then, at age 22, bought out Heather Hill Applicances and established Bad Boy Furniture in 1955.

Having adopted the nickname "the Bad Boy" for himself and developed Bad Boy Furniture into a chain of stores around the Toronto area. "Bad Boy" Lastman was associated with many publicity stunts, including travelling to the Arctic in the 1960s to "sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo."

Lastman sold the chain in 1975 to run for Legislative Assembly of Ontario as a Progressive Conservative candidate. That provincial election was his only election loss throughout his career. The Bad Boy trademark was ultimately acquired by the large furniture chain The Brick but the new owners allowed it to lapse through lack of use until it expired.

In 1991, Lastman's son Blayne and business partner Marvin Kirsh re-launched the chain, over the objections of his father, who felt the economic climate was unsatisfactory. The store was soon memorable to most Southern Ontario television viewers who have seen its commercials. The ads feature Lastman in a cameo appearance, Blayne in a prison suit, and always ended with the line: "Who's better than Bad Boy?... Nooooooobody!"

In 1993, Lastman saw Clinton impersonator Tim Waters on television, and shortly afterwards contacted him and arranged for a commercial to be shot. The commercial featured Waters dressed as Clinton delivering the classic Nooooooobody! line. While merely a mildly amusing commercial to most of the viewing public, Lastman's move attracted attention, as he soon received a letter from the White House requesting that he "cease and desist all unauthorized use of the likeness of the President of the United States of America in advertising of commercial services and products". Lastman refused to stop airing the commercials, and even produced several more, featuring both Waters and a Hillary Clinton impersonator. "Last time I checked," Lastman quipped, "this was Canada, not the 51st state."