All of the greatest, most powerful men dress in white suits: Sir Ricardo Montalban..Sir John Travolta... Sir Hervé Villechaize...Sir Colonel Sanders... Sir Man From Glad. (That lede will finally bag a Pulitzer Prize! - Chimples)But you probably forgot Montreal's very own Gilbert Croteau.
Montreal's Man in White only wore white after a Pope he had met died.
The white attire became his trademark.
Croteau ran for mayor in 1962 and 1966 and might have tried again in 1970 had the Montreal police - under the power of his arch-rival Jean Drapeau - just left him alone.
Croteau was a chiropractor who lived and worked at 4725 St. Denis and gained prominence in city politics under the brief mayoralty reign of upstart Sarto Fournier, seen as a puppet for the Duplessis Union National provincial government.
Croteau quarterbacked the disastrous Dozois Plan slum clearance project, which saw an entire downtown neighbourhood demolished for the horrific Jeanne Mance social housing project that stands to this day.
Drapeau returned to power and Fournier went back to being a senator.
Croteau created his own Montreal Liberation Party, He denounced Place des Arts, attacked the metro as "catacombs" and claimed it had a 70 percent cost overrun, and predicted the CBC tower would never get built.
About a year before the 1966 election, Croteau got a knock at his chiropractor office.Thirty cops came in and arrested him for quackery, as the prosecution noted that he had equipment lying around that he couldn't even explain its use. He was fined. He then attempted to sue the city.
That didn't stop Croteau from putting on his white socks, white underwear, white tie, white jacket, white shoes and white whatever else every morning and fighting the good fight to become mayor.His rallies attracted 200 people and he hustled to get as much publicity as possible.
But Croteau didn't turn out to be much of a threat in spite of his eye-catching white threads.
The man in white scored under 5,000 votes in the election of 26 Oct. 1966, compared to 117,000 for Drapeau. so it was no photo finish.
Indeed rando candidate Louise Parent got almost half of Croteau's total.
Croteau promised to fight again for the mayoralty in 1970.
But authorities had other ideas.
He was arrested again and sentenced to 30 months in prison by judge Maurice Rousseau, who said he gave legit chiropractors - which he believed existed - a bad name. Croteau sported a black suit during his trial, even though he had vowed only to sport normal colours after he became mayor.
The sentence seems awfully harsh but heck you can't fight city hall.
Croteau remained free as he appealed the sentence but the distraction derailed any hopes he had of running for mayor for a third time.
Drapeau was re-elected in a landslide, as opposition was in disarray due to the FLQ separatist-terrorist October Crisis of 1970, as soldiers patrolled Montreal streets as part of the War Measures Act.
Croteau also had a precocious 14-year-old son named Gaetan Croteau who called himself the Great Donovan as a young showman hypnotist in 1969. He was sentenced to eight years in prison for having $275,000 in counterfeit cash at the age of 19. He would be around 62 now if still alive.
Gilbert Croteau is surely dead by now but if anybody ever sets up a man-in-white museum he deserves his place.