TORONTO - Thirty years after King Tut and his mystical possessions cast a spell on Toronto, many exhibition attendees and organizers still have memorabilia from the blockbuster show.
Gerri Grant, who managed the exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario, cherishes her Tut '79 shawl and poster.
"It was a really exciting time for Toronto," says Grant, who is now the executive director of the Arthritis and Autoimmunity Research Centre Foundation in the city.
"It was the first, in my mind anyway, really big popular exhibition."
The roving international show, which is being fondly remembered ahead of the arrival of a new Tut extravaganza, included the boy pharaoh's jewelry, furniture and death mask dating back over 3,000 years.
It sparked attendance records around the world before landing in Toronto and made a huge dent in the cultural zeitgeist.
Ancient Egypt parties became popular, as did a dance called Tutting, which involves moving the body into geometric positions like those depicted in Egyptian art.
Merchants also stocked up on Tut collectibles, and the Looney Tunes cartoon series aired a couple of Tut-themed episodes.
Then there was that catchy Steve Martin Tut spoof song that he performed on "Saturday Night Live" and is now a YouTube hit.
"It was fabulous because at that point we were riding the 'Tut mania' wave," says Ronald Leprohon, the University of Toronto's resident Egyptology expert who worked on the '79 AGO exhibit and still has a poster from it.
Georgina Bradshaw, who went to the Toronto show with her husband, says many in the city "hadn't seen anything like it."
"Our little museum in Toronto at the time was pretty dusty and musty and nothing shone," says Bradshaw, who is now retired and still has a Tut book she bought at the show.
"And everything that I remember from that exhibit was shining and sparkling."
Now newly renovated, the AGO is set to shine and sparkle with an ancient Egyptian esthetic once again this fall, with the exclusive Canadian opening of "King Tut: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs" on Nov. 24.
Running through April 18, 2010, the exhibit is much larger than its '79 counterpart, featuring over 100 pieces from Tut's tomb and other ancient sites.
Among them is a towering statue of Tutankhamen, who became pharaoh at age nine and died under mysterious circumstances around the age of 19.
Also there will be his golden sandals found with his mummified remains in 1922, as well as jewelry and a bed that experts believe King Tut used.
"Anybody who's ever made anything can just marvel at the pure craftsmanship of (the items), and that to me is the magic," says Leprohon, who is a consultant on the new exhibit.
"The magic that someone thousands and thousands of years ago sat down and made this stuff because there was a certain faith there - a belief that if you brought all this gear with you, you would lead a better life in the other world."
The Toronto exhibit that ran from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, 1979, was the show's last North American stop. It appeared at the AGO because the Royal Ontario Museum was undergoing renovations.
Judith John, who was the manager of publicity and promotions for the Toronto exhibit, says being the last stop was a huge advantage.
"People had been reading about it in New Orleans and in San Francisco and in New York and in Chicago," she says. "So by the time it got here, people not only from Toronto and the province but certainly the (nearby) states were very excited to buy tickets."
Tickets for the Toronto show sold out in four days, drawing in a record 750,000 visitors to the gallery and prompting a spike in AGO memberships.
Beverley Carret was determined to go, despite being past her due date to give birth.
"I had to see the Tut show," says Carret, who worked in wine promotions at the time and is now the AGO's manager of government and community relations.
"The one thing I remember is at the very end, ending up in the gift shop and buying this huge chocolate sucker in the shape of King Tut's mask and literally demolishing it in the car before I got home."
The Toronto Tut tickets were just $3.50 for adults and were timed. If pass holders failed to show up on the date and time indicated, they risked losing their chance to be admitted.
Four major Canadian retail chains were selling the tickets. Once they sold out, enthusiasts had to resort to contests to try to get passes.
Bradshaw's daughter won tickets through an essay contest at school.
George Morin of London, Ont., scored two passes through a contest held by a local radio station.
"An announcement came over the radio when I was at work," he recalls. "And I had three people running around the office trying to find me because I had a deadline to call in to claim them."
For all the buzz, though, Bradshaw says it was almost eerily quiet once she got inside the show and ticket holders were listening with earphones to the tape-recorded tours narrated by actor William Hutt.
"It was so silent in there and it was filled with people but they weren't talking out loud," she says. "It was quite magical ... very tomb-like, almost.
"It really stirred up emotions in everyone, I think, that looked at it."
Grant, John and the rest of the AGO staff were the last people to see the exhibit before it left the city for Germany. It was New Year's Eve when they bid it farewell and it "was a magic moment," says Grant.
"We all were teary," adds John. "It was very emotional. We all knew we'd been part of something special and it had gone well."
The show marked Morin's first time at a museum and sparked a lifelong drive to learn about ancient cultures and visit international art exhibitions, he says.
"Those type of activities have become really a part of my life now," he says, noting he kept his Tut ticket stub in a cedar box up until about three years ago, when he lost it in a divorce settlement.
Bradshaw, too, embarked on a similar journey after attending the '79 show, reading as much as she could on Egyptian culture and visiting the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza in Mexico.
Next year, she plans to visit Egypt to see the pyramids with her daughter, Jennifer.
"It was one of those things that gets into you and it's always there, that desire to see more and to learn more," says Bradshaw.
"And it all started with that trip downtown in Toronto."
As for why Tut draws in large crowds, Morin thinks it's the appeal of seeing objects that one may never have a chance to look at again.
"I did not expect to see it again in my lifetime and here it's coming back and I can't be there," says the retiree, who won't be able to attend because he spends winters in Florida.
Bradshaw, who plans to attend the latest exhibit, isn't sure the 2009 show will spark the same excitement that the '79 one did.
"For us, it was just incredibly amazing to see some of these things, and I think the kids today seemed to have seen everything," she says.
John also notes that travel to Egypt is more common than it was in '79.
"I think at the time, not many people could envision getting to Egypt," she says. "Now, there's nothing off the beaten track."
