A few years ago I researched Miller for a Toronto business magazine and was in contact with a woman who knew him and would visit his place. She did not speak ill of Miller but noted that he kept no photos in his house and was also keen on plastic surgery and getting cryogenically frozen.
Miller was known as a media-shy hermit who had a separate entrance built for himself at his company office so he wouldn't have to see his West Island workers.
His wife left him somewhere along the line and moved to the States.
He once hired a couple of retired NHL hockey stars to play on his company team so the squad could come out on top.
Later on a friend of Coolopolis provided more inside info on Miller.
Miller's father David Miller worked for Harry Ship, Montreal's gambling den king of the 1940s. The Montreal gambling Jewish gangsters were math whizzes who leveraged their quick computational skills to build an underworld fortune. Robert was also clever in that same style.
Harry Ship's son Neil - who called himself Neil Sheppard as an adult - became close friends with Robert Miller, who was a math whiz with a great memory.
The late Neil Ship told Coolopolis in a correspondence between 2017 and 2020 that he suspected Robert had pedophile tendencies and he mused about writing about Miller.
"Robert had very awkward bullying skills, that he folded into a recipe on how to become a billionaire.
His dad worked for my dad, and we grew up together. We competed for a woman who I ended up marrying.
Robert begged me to come with him to Rider College when he started because I was the one who broke the ice with people and I picked up the girls when we were a team and were really hot and did some wild and crazy shit.
We had two French girls we used to visit once a week or so. They lived together. Had some crazy scenes. But he was as loony as they come. I even dated his sister Shirley Ann for quite a while.
After he made it big he came to visit me in NY. He offered me a position in Future Electronics said he'd move me and my wife to Boston I think it was, and promised I'd make $100,000 in the first six months and that was in the 1980s.
We kept in touch but I always suspected he had a double life. I didn't suspect it had to do with pedophelia but I can absolutely see it now. Lots of stories and inside shit I was thinking of selling to a publisher.
I was going to tell you about this but let it go. We fell out after someone had said something to him which I never had a chance to defend or even learn about.
Robert could make anyone do anything. Total strangers were putty in his hands, although when he did it back then it was all part of a comedy routine back then. If told you some stories you'd think I was crazy!
David Miller (l) and Harry Ship on trial, 1946
When we were 17, 18, or so his dad owned a used car lot on Decarie he worked with high end sports cars and luxury rides. Robert picked me up every night in different exotic! A Mercedes 300 XL Gull wing. A 700 HP Corvette Stingray. A Ford XL with a 425 that we took up North Robert drove over 150 MPH back to MTL totally buried the speedometer!
One day were in a convertible Vette a beauty. People are staring wherever we go. It's a hot summer day I'm wearing docker slacks and a cotton shirt somehow Robert's in a suit and tie. We pull up right next to a bus on Sherbrooke St. the entire row of passengers on the right are gawking at the car looking down at us. Robert 6'3" casually gets out of the car, stands up and takes off his jacket and puts it behind the seat and gets back in as he pulls a distorted moronic face like Mr Bean.
At the green light the bus goes. Robert sits there not moving, watches as they get to the next red light, then burns rubber & fishtails to catch up again. He pulls up exactly in the same place gets out and takes of his shoes, puts them behind the seat! Doesn't move til they reach the next red... He peels out and we're beside them again!
Now he brings his enormous foot right up to the steering wheel and one by one removes his socks.
BTW Throughout all this he has a face like Mr. Bean totally and he's making snorting sounds too. Like a depraved lunatic. I have to keep a straight face always. I usually don't know whats next either. This routine was new to me.
Next light he pulls up bare footed, looks up at them as if he just noticed, and nonchalantly puts his foot up to his mouth and starts biting his toenails! Not just biting...he's snorting and grunting it looks like he's making a meal of it, as he spits out pieces with his dumb Mr Bean face.
He does this for two more lights until everyone in the bus now, not just on one side, but all isles are up out of the seats and fighting for window space! Even the bus driver stands up, opens the door and stands on the step there watching and scratching head. As they are now at a fever pitch, Robert slowly drives away. Leaving them all freaked out.
There are crazier stories that only go to show his total lack of caring what people thoughtb or how he looked. That gave him a power that is unimaginable.
Still, oddly when he went to Ryder College in Trenton NJ, he called me the night before and asked me to go with him. He didn't want to go alone. I said no but he spent two days breaking me down even threatening to skip college entirely if I didn't go with him.
Just a little side track story. to illustrate that genius, crazy and fearless types permeated that bookie joint. My uncle Louis was not a midget but an unusually short man. I think 4' 6" He was so fast with numbers he never used a calculator and was often challenged that he could add faster than a calculator. In fact he won every time. I'm talking about the old mechanical ones they used. With the electronic ones it was a dead heat.
It's amazing there are many still in my family my a cousin Rona Ship, and other who have math skills. Robert and his father Dave had it even more."