Sitting around the dining-room table in his compact Toronto bungalow, veteran broadcaster Earl Warren suddenly surprises me with a secret wish. If he had to choose another way to make a living instead of a career in radio, "I'd come back as an interior decorator," he announces without skipping a beat. "I just love interior decorating!"

We're surrounded by what he describes with gentle self-deprecation as a "mish-mash." But to an outsider's eye, the tasteful blend of jade sculpture, elegant Chinese water-colours and high-end craftsmanship provides ample evidence of his ulterior talent. "Every time I've bought a house, I've always been hands-on," he says of his efforts to fashion a living space that's both comfortable and inviting.

In much the same way as he makes a stranger feel at home, Warren has welcomed, and in turn been warmly welcomed by, radio audiences over a career that spans 50 years. "The best part of the whole thing," he says looking back, "is the rapport I've been able to build up with my listeners and the fact that most of them consider me to be an old, good friend."

Throughout a good chunk of that career, listeners identified with his affable everyman personality while tuning in to his highly rated House of Warren show on Toronto's CFRB. For the past 10 years, a large and loyal following has listened to him host a weekly newsmagazine for seniors on CHWO in Oakville, Ontario.

While attending university summer school in Winnipeg, he decided to give radio a shot and applied to a new station in the city. The station manager at CKY - who'd been a judge for the high school public-speaking contest that young Earl had won with his impressive oratory - put him to work in the newsroom. After two months, he was allowed to read two 90-second newscasts each day. "So I did that and I loved it!"

Despite his father's concerns about his schooling, Warren never did go back. Instead, he went on to work at announcing jobs with various radio stations across western Canada. Along the way he met and, at age 18, married his late wife Dorothy. He eventually joined CFRN Edmonton, where he became chief architect of the dynastic House of Warren. The program rocketed to the top of the ratings and attracted the attention of CFRB's then-program director Jack Dawson who offered the 27-year-old a job.