He was a man of many hats, literally

Former Star editor remembered for his sense of the absurd

- KENYON WALLACE

Mitchell Smyth, shown in 1998, began his journalism career in Northern Ireland and retired from the Star's travel section in 2001. Over those four decades, he amassed a collection of more than 100 hats.

Mitchell Smyth, the Toronto Star’s legendary former travel editor, one-time gossip columnist, and man of many hats, quite literally, has died. He was 88.

Smyth’s journalism career spanned more than 40 years, beginning humbly at a tiny weekly newspaper in Northern Ireland and finishing at the helm of the Star’s influential travel section. During that time, Smyth endeared himself to readers and colleagues alike with his irreverent humour, keen sense of the absurd and tales from his journeys across six of seven continents — during which he amassed a collection of more than 100 hats.

“He’d get all these weird hats and then randomly at a party he would just show up with one of them,” laughs the elder of Smyth’s two sons, Norman, in an interview with the Star. “Picture a Mongolian soldier’s cap, a Bobby’s hat from London or a sombrero … There was usually a story behind it, like, how did he get that hat?”

And it was telling stories, as Smyth’s friends and family alike attest, was what he was best at.

Born on July 16, 1936 in Ballycastle, Northern Ireland, Smyth caught the news bug early when he decided at age 12 he wanted to be a reporter. By 18, he began honing his craft in the Northern Ireland town of Coleraine for its local weekly, the Northern Constitution. Smyth would later describe the newsroom of the more than 100-year-old publication as archaic, noisy, stinking of stale cigarettes and with typewriters “big enough to serve as boat anchors.”