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When Canada’s Walk of Fame board chair Nick Di Donato was a kid, his father had a jukebox in his Toronto restaurant, Lorenzo’s, that played Paul Anka’s breakthrough song.
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“I remember ‘Diana’ was the most frequently played song by all the young ladies in the restaurant,” said Di Donato, who is also the president-CEO of Liberty Entertainment Group, which has several Toronto restaurants, nightclubs and special event spaces.
“I remember that like it was yesterday. So I was pretty thrilled, almost 60 years later, to be honoring Anka at Canada’s Walk of Fame (as a 2005 inductee). My roots in the entertainment business were watching my dad and busing tables.”
Di Donato is now leading the effort to honour the Ottawa-born Anka again.
This time, it’s for the world premiere of the TIFF film ‘Paul Anka: His Way,’ which will be celebrated with a 200-person party at Union Station on Sept. 10 in an event space run by Liberty Entertainment Group.
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“(CWOF) hasn’t done much during TIFF and as I’m the new chair (as of April), I’ve started a new initiative saying, ‘While we’re here in Toronto celebrating TIFF, Canada’s Walk of Fame should be celebrating Canadians at TIFF,’” Di Donato said.
“It almost gets lost because we have people from all over the world, and many top American stars, and perhaps we’re not really celebrating the Canadians at TIFF. This year we’ve chosen Paul Anka because he was inductee into Canada’s Walk of Fame (previously).”
The setting for the party is quite unusual as it’s a special events space underneath Union Station, where Liberty Entertainment Group also separately launched sushi and steak house restaurant Blue Bovine in February.
“We always try to be creative doing things,” said Di Donato.
“We have a space which is pretty unique in Union Station. It will be one of the very first events there. It’s got a skylight so you see the whole city when you’re in the venue itself. It’s almost hidden underground. It was a carriage way. I think the trains used to run under there and it looks like a moat by Union Station. So it will a very interesting and unique event.”
And Di Donato is hoping it’s the first of many.
“This is our inaugural event as Canada’s Walk of Fame during TIFF and I’m hoping to carry that forward in the future,” he said.
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