finding Oriena Currie, The Pinball Queen of Canada

Oriena Curie: The Pinball Queen of Canada
1978-04-09 Toronto Star - original photo by Hal Barkley

It all started with a message from my mother-in-law.  Apparently a friend of hers mentioned that way-back-when he had written a book on pinball, and would that be of interest to me?  Yes.  A few months later, I received a lovely gift of 1979's Special When Lit, signed by the author himself!

It's a great book that snapshots a real interesting moment in time, right as pinballs were on the cusp of going solid-state and video games were just starting to assert their dominance on the latent North American market.

I didn't think much of it at the time, but on page 106 was my first introduction to Oriena Currie

Some time later after getting the book I got in touch with my friend Nicholas Baldridge, co-creator of the Coin-Op Carnival magazine, hobbyist extraordinaire, and host of the For Amusement Only podcast.
I asked if he was interested in perhaps interviewing Edward Trapunski about his book.  I contacted Edward, and he was OK with the idea too.  Nicholas bought a copy, got in touch, and this resulted in this interview:

For Amusement Only podcast episode 457: Interview with Edward Trapunski 09-30-19
(direct link to the mp3)

these excerpts caught my ear:

Edward Trapunski: ... there were two things that triggered me writing the book.  One was that I met this woman, Oriena Currie, who was -- I call her the Pinball Queen of Canada -- because her and her husband were the ones who imported and sold and serviced many of the pinball machines in Canada.  She got into trouble.  They were charged.  And I ran a bunch of stories about Mrs. Currie-- she's no longer with us-- but I wrote about her. 

[...] 

Nicholas Baldridge: you mentioned that Mrs. Currie got into trouble, did that stop the import of games entirely?  Was she the primary importer, or a distributor for a particular brand?
ET: Well, she liked Gottliebs.  At that time Gottliebs were the ones most people liked more than the other brands, more than Ballys.  So she brought in everything.   I wouldn't say she was the major, uh-- she was one of the ones that didn't have any kind organizational connections.  Is that a diplomatic way of saying it?
NB: *laughs* yeah, I think so
ET:  Yeah so she was one of the few.  She lived outside of Toronto in a rural community, and had a big barn where she brought in the games before she could actually send them out to places.  She would have to make sure that they were working.  And that's where she did all the work.  Her and her husband.  Her husband actually died, electrocuted, fixing pinball machines.  So that's how she took over the business.
I actually traveled with her quite a bit.  There was a lot of conventions.  I would go with her to the conventions.  A lot of it was cash business. When you saw people making deals about bringing pinball machines, payments were made with suitcases full of cash.

A short while after that interview I met up with Edward Trapunski, talked pinball, bagatelle, his writing, and I was able to pass him a copy of Coin-Op Carnival!

Mr. Trapunski at home with Coin-Op Carnival #1

It was during this meeting he got me the contact info for Oriena Currie's son Charlie Currie, who was gracious enough to respond to all of my questions.  He has some rather incredible stories to tell about growing up in a coin-op operator family.  I am not going to relate them all here for obvious privacy concerns, but perhaps I'll ask if he'd be open for reviewing and sharing specific things publicly in the future.

One thing he did mention to me was that he and his mom had been in the Toronto Star in 1974 and could I find the article?  Well I looked and I eventually did find the article in Toronto Star archives.
Not only did I find that article, I found a number of articles that included his mom.
My friend Jean-Francois had remembered articles about the Currie's in his magazines, and dug up for me some issues of Canadian Coin-Op magazine.  These were all scanned and posted in the last entry.

I'm presenting everything below in order of publication date.  Open the images in a new window to enhance readability.

We start with an incredible 3-page profile from March 1974, featuring Oriena and Charles Sr of Currie Amusements, a young Charlie Currie, and some incredible onomatopoeia.

Toronto Star 1974-03-02 page J6

Toronto Star 1974-03-02 page J7
The picture resolution isn't great, but bottom-left is Oriena and her song Charles

"GUNCHING"!

Toronto Star 1974-03-02 page J8

The April issues of Canadian Coin Box magazine has an interesting article on the legal pressures being faced by operators.  It features an amazing closing quote from Oriena:

"What they are doing is threatening to drive us-- and we're all small-- out of business and open the way to criminal elements"

Canadian Coin Box Magazine 1974-04 p 10

Canadian Coin Box Magazine 1974-04 p 11

An update from June 1974 focuses on the court battle for pinball's legality in Ontario!  Harrowing stuff.
People always link Roger Sharpe to saving pinball with his famous courtroom appearance but he was one of many people involved in legal battles.  I remember seeing a 1947 issue of Life magazine where proponents were legally advocating for (flipper less) pinball as a game of skill and thus not an illegal gambling device. 

There is A LOT to tell about the legal history of pinball in Canada, a tale that should be told some day.  This article also features Peter Davis of Davis Skill Games.

But Mrs. Currie's troubles here were exacting (and expected.)  April 27th, 1974 she hosted a pinball tournament in Waterloo.
As police are known to do, they entered the tournament and tried to entrap people by placing bets on games, only to have a grand total of zero people fall into their trap.  PEOPLE WERE THERE TO PLAY PINBALL!  Despite that, the cops still shut it down.
(fun fact: the tournament used multiple copies of Gottlieb's Pro-Football from 1973)

Canadian Coin Box Magazine 1974-08 p 8

Canadian Coin Box Magazine 1974-08 p 9

Then, tragedy strikes.  Charles Currie Sr passes away at the age of 47.
It says here he was electrocuted installing a bleeding-edge "TV Game", but his son tells me "The electrocution of my father wasn't related to a Pong. He was installing a game and had come in out of the snow with feet covered in snow. He needed to move a competitor's game and the cord he came into contact with, now snow melting and dripping, had exposed wires."

Canadian Coin Box Magazine 1974-08 p 12a

Oriena and her children would continue with the company.

In 1978 Oriena received another profile in the Toronto Star, and gives us a great pinball prophecy:
"Multi-level play fields and rear projection may soon appear,"
and a few years later, it was so.

The last article I found with her was from 1982, where she (hilariously) confides that she doesn't actually enjoy the machines in her business.
For future research purposes, it does cite 1972 as the beginning of her battles about the legality of pinball in Canada.
I have it on good authority that dog is named Scooter.

Toronto Star - 1982-08-24 page H23

Her experience with the legal system and the lobbying therein eventually led Oriena towards politics, running in Halton in 1984.  She then spent time fighting judicial injustice, forming YOYO (You're On Your Own) and working with Canada Court Watch.

Oriena passed away July 22, 2007.  (obituary in Canada Court Watch PDF)