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From boardrooms to bodices... Making Canada's history sexy

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When you think of the War of 1812, what images come to mind?

The White House burning? Native leaders like Tecumseh helping British troops defeat Americans? The only war Canada won against the US A? When double alumna and best-selling business author Beverly Behan, HBA’81, LLB’84, thinks ‘War of 1812,’ she thinks ‘sexy.’

Behan has what many would call a dream career – she consults with boards of directors ranging from Fortune 500s to recent IPO s (Initial Public Offering) all over the world. In October, she will lead a two-day session for the Malaysian Institute of Directors; next March she will be the keynote speaker at a directors’ conference in Central America. She has worked with more than 100 boards – primarily public companies in the United States and Canada – over the past 15 years. Her new book Great Companies Deserve Great Boards: A CEO ’s Guide to the Boardroom (Palgrave Macmillan) debuted at No.1 on the Globe & Mail’s business bestseller list earlier this year.

Then she spent time in Niagara-on-the-Lake as a lecturer at the Conference Board of Canada’s Directors’ College and got to know more of the local lore of 1812, more than she learned in school from the dry pages of history texts. That’s when a new, non-business idea hatched: a screenplay on the War of 1812.

“There were so many wonderful characters interwoven with the invasion of Niagara during the War of 1812 – Laura Secord, Isaac Brock, to a lesser extent, Tecumseh. It frankly amazed me that nobody had ever used this as the basis of a movie. With the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 coming up next year, I decided that it was high time to create something like this.”

Behan doesn’t mess around when a good idea hits her. Her foray into screenwriting began as a weekend project in April following a very busy winter.

“I had about two weeks where there were no board meetings going on and it was relatively quiet – if New York can ever be described as relatively quiet. So, I sat down and started writing this screenplay. Before I knew it, the entire script was finished and when I showed it to friends, they enjoyed it. “

Friends started urging her to turn “1812 in Niagara” into a book and get it out on  he shelves quickly, because interest in the War of 1812 is building with the bi-centennial approaching.

As a young lawyer in Calgary in the late 1980s, Behan decided to try her hand at writing mysteries as a hobby. She proved ill-suited to the genre. Students were asked to compose the opening chapter of their mystery novel, which typically involves the discovery of a body. Behan spent most of the chapter discussing the elegant furniture in the room where the body lay.

“When I finished reading, my classmates told me ‘I don’t care who killed him, but I really want to buy that couch!’…That killed all my aspirations to write after I had that reaction from people,” admits Behan.

But the creative writing bug didn’t let go and in 2009, she took a screenwriting course in New York just for fun – “brain candy,” as she calls it.

“Most class members were young film students who wanted to write contemporary movies about Manhattan – drug deals in Soho, superheroes in Times Square.”

Behan, on the other hand, only wanted to write “period pieces” with strong female characters: Mary Magdalene and the Empress Josephine. To her surprise, her young classmates loved her screenwriting - and her ‘hot’ female characters – and she found that the structured approach to screenwriting somewhat paralleled business writing, and was far more compatible with her style. So, she was prepared when the right idea hit.

But what about the War of 1812 is sexy?

“Tecumseh is the sexiest man alive in 1812. He is this Native warrior who can
kind of kill anything at how many paces. In one sense, there’s something very sexy about that. But on the flipside, if you read some of the sayings of Tecumseh, this guy was intellectually absolutely superb. He was a true leader. So, that’s very sexy, too.”

Another key character central to Behan’s screenplay/book is a familiar name
north and south of the 49th Parallel: Laura Secord.

“Most little Canadian girls do projects on Laura Secord. All we really know about her is there’s chocolates involved, which there really never was. I just thought I’d like to take Laura Secord and make her into the Canadian Scarlett O’Hara.” And who would her “Canadian Scarlett O’Hara” be if she had the big screen budget of Gone With The Wind?

“My dream would be an all-Canadian but Hollywood-calibre cast. Rachel McAdams for Laura Secord. If you put the picture of Laura Secord from the chocolates next to Rachel, she’s a dead-ringer. Keiffer Sutherland plays Isaac Brock. I have a PowerPoint on my laptop with a picture of Isaac Brock and a picture of Keiffer Sutherland. They look almost identical. He’s the right age and looks exactly like him and he’s Canadian. To me this is the 1812 equivalent of  ‘24’. Isaac Brock is Jack Bauer of 1812. I think Adam Beach has to be Tecumseh. He’s a little young but he certainly has the beefcake for it.”

How does she think her account of 1812 will be received?

“Historical purists will hate it because it’s not historically pure. Any time you’re writing any sort of period piece, as a writer you’ve got to balance the history with
making an entertaining story.”

The author admits there are some deliberate historical inaccuracies in her story.

“But to me, if you make history fun, and if you make characters compelling, people learn more about it. It is definitely told from the Canadian side of the border. That was a conscious decision. I hope Canadians really like it and say ‘this is a really fun story and an important part of history and it was a fun read.’ ”

Great Companies Deserve Great Boards is available in hardcover and on Amazon Kindle. 1812 in Niagara is available in paperback through Britnell Books: www.britnell.com/books-business/1812-niagarascreenplay and an eBook version is available on Amazon, Kobo and other eBook sites.

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