Rod Gonsalves-Quesnel
Rod Gonsalves-Quesnel was a Jamaican-born television writer for Citytv and MuchMusic in Toronto, Ontario.
While at City-TV MuchMusic, he wrote for the Ziggy Lorenc series Life on Venus Ave. He went on to write a fashion column for the The Globe and Mail's Fashion and Design section. He also started the Canadian Best Dressed List for The Globe and Mail after interviewing Best Dressed List founder Eleanor Lambert. He is mentioned in Rosemary Sexton's 1992 book on socialites, Glitter Girls.
In 1992, he photographed famous Canadians, including Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies, Yousuf Karsh, Celine Dion, Martin Short and Mike Myers, for a photographic essay titled Laughing. The event, Laughing Matters, was covered by City and Country Home, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and CBC Television. The proceeds from an auction of the images went to benefit the hospice Casey House, founded by June Callwood. In the mid-nineties he moved to Crete and then settled in London and New York. In 2005, Roderick Gonsalves began working for a private art consulting firm and helped put together photography collections for clients in New York, London and Berlin. For a few years in his early thirties he also spent time in different rehabilitation facilities. He died suddenly while traveling with friends through Tangier in 2007. He was 36 years old.
Gonsalves was the great-grand nephew of Cecil Rhodes (his father's mother, Daisy Rhodes, was the niece of Cecil Rhodes).
Mr. Gonsalves was photographed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Marion Ettlinger, rendered in graphite by Charles Pachter and painted by Mendelson Joe, among others.