His stint with 'RB lasted for 22 years until 1983 when he was unceremoniously fired. The news of his departure made the front page of The Toronto Star. Being the ever-resourceful type, Warren bounced back and created the popular Saturday Seniors show at CHWO.
When the station switched frequencies to the more powerful 740 AM, Saturday Seniors became The Earl Warren Show broadcast on Sunday mornings. It bears all the hallmarks of what his audience has grown to expect - an inimitable folksy style mixed with useful information and classic tunes from the 1940s to the 1970s, a package that he refers to as "mature radio that entertains and informs."
It's also a program of which he's fiercely proud. Not only does he produce and host the four-hour show, but he handles all sponsor accounts as well. "It's a formidable job," he points out, "for a guy who can hardly walk...."
In the last few years, health problems have slowed his pace. He lost a kidney to cancer in 1990 and later underwent surgery to implant a pacemaker. More recently, a fall damaged his vertebrae, leaving him with a significant loss of feeling in his hands and legs.
But such setbacks haven't brought on self-pity nor diminished the 68-year-old's passions. He still gets a thrill watching his standardbreds win at the track. And there are "the boys," as he affectionately refers to his hounds Lewis and Burnsie, who have the run of the house. Most of all, there's a loving devotion to his partner, Marilyn Slater, and his family of four children and eight grandchildren.
And there's his lifelong passion. "Once I get sitting down in front of the mic, I go into a zone for four hours and nothing bothers me," he says with a satisfied smile. Then he adds in that sonorous voice familiar to so many for so long, "I just figure that I'm damn lucky to have picked a career that I love and I've never had to do a serious day's work in my life!"