Shuster was born to a Jewish immigrant family[1] in Toronto, Ontario, and spent part of his childhood in Niagara Falls. Shuster was originally Shusterovich.[2] His family returned to Toronto in the College/Spadina area,[2] in time for Shuster to attend high school at Toronto's Harbord Collegiate Institute, where he met Johnny Wayne in 1930.
The two would soon be performing sketches and routines at school talent shows, continuing to do the same when they both attended the University of Toronto, majoring in English literature.[3][2] Starting with entertaining scouts, he and Shuster wrote some original scores and performed at the university's Hart House Follies.[2]
Professional career
By the early 1940s Wayne and Shuster began appearing on local radio station CFRB, and during World War II they joined the Canadian Army as performers, entertaining Canadian troops, and performed on the CBC Radio series The Army Show.[3]
After the war, the duo appeared on CBC radio and television, becoming a network fixture with regular appearances from the 1940s through the 1980s. They appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show 66 times.[3] The duo would remain a comedy team for 50 years, until Wayne's death in 1990.
Shuster was married to Ruth Shuster c. 1943, and had two children, Rosie and Steve. Rosie Shuster (b. 1950) was a comedy writer for Saturday Night Live and other television programs, and former wife of Lorne Michaels. Steve Shuster, a standup comic, writer, musician, and actor, died in 2017 at the age of 67.[5][6]
