George Mathewson
When the subject of successful Sarnians comes up the name of Ray Jarvis Worsley is never mentioned.
But it should be.
Though all but forgotten in his hometown, here was a performer, singer and dancer who worked with the biggest stars in show business.
Ray Jarvis was born in Sarnia on Jan. 28, 1935, the youngest of five children raised by Myrtle and Harold Worsley.
He grew up on Collingwood Street, attended SCITS, and by the time he was 16 owned a dance studio with 250 students. He was a baton-twirling champion, a circus trapeze artist and a member of the National Ballet.
“His mom said he was born singing and dancing,” recalled Lori Austin, his niece and a Sarnia resident. “It was always in his nature.”
Growing up gay in Sarnia in the late 1940s and early ‘50s couldn’t have easy for Ray Jarvis Worsley, but he was by all accounts vivacious, outgoing and well liked.
In his early 20s he formed the Ray Jarvis Trio and became a regular on a popular CBC TV Sunday night variety show hosted by Shirley Harmer.
Moving to New York, he performed at Radio City Music Hall and the famed Latin Quarter. He appeared on the Sid Caesar and Ed Sullivan TV shows, and performed on Broadway in the chorus of The Pajama Game, Can Can and My Fair Lady.
In the 1950s Ray Jarvis headed west. In Las Vegas he performed in Minsky's Follies at the Dunes and Ecstasy on Ice at the Thunderbird, and from 1963 to 1967 was the principal male singer in the Tropicana's Les Folies Bergere.
He sang and danced on USO Tours with Bob Hope and worked with Royal Caribbean for five years, becoming the company's youngest cruise director.
Ray Jarvis performed with a Who's Who of stars, including Robert Goulet, Jimmy Durante, Dorothy Lamour, Sophie Tucker and Siegfried & Roy.
Two of his closest friends were Betty Grable and Liberace, with whom he would get together after shows to cook spaghetti at 2 a.m.
In 1983, Jarvis moved back to Las Vegas from Chicago with his life partner of 33 years, Jerry Ritholz.
“Ray made everyone around him feel good,” Ritholz once told the Las Vegas Sun. “Wherever Ray was, people would just flock. He was an amazing person. Everyone in show business knew him.”
In their later years, the couple was involved with a number of charities including Golden Rainbow, which assists people living with HIV/AIDS.
When he died in 2009 at the age of 74, friends described Ray Jarvis not only as the ultimate showman but also as a warm, compassionate and optimistic man who knew how to live and enjoy life.
Jarvis returned infrequently to Sarnia but often took his parents on elaborate trips. In the 1960s he brought his mother Myrtle a spider monkey he smuggled into Canada in his pocket.
“Tiko ran the house. It was grandma’s baby,” Austin said.
He would also bring his niece giant stuffed animals and they’d go for spins in his big car outfitted with a TV and a phone.
“He was famous Uncle Ray,” she recalled. “He didn’t come home enough, but sometimes he came home just to breathe.”