James Rice was a photography pioneer in Montreal early last century, the familiar Rice Studios name in the lower right of his images a prestigious signature.

You've probably seen James Rice's historic Hockey photographs without ever knowing they came from his bulky box camera.

There is Rice's most famous image of all, a finely detailed study of Canadiens legend Howie Morenz. It is by far the most widely published photo of the player voted the greatest Hockey talent of the past century's first 50 years.

Then there's his shot of Georges Vezina outside the Forum, almost the only picture ever seen of the goaler. Vezina is looking down his battered stick to the asphalt beneath his bare skate blades, a year or so before he died of tuberculosis in 1925.

Sift through the many Hockey archives that have absorbed the work of James Bedford (Jimmy) Rice and you'll find hundreds of his photos - Stanley Cup-champion team shots and every notable Montreal Wanderer, Maroon and Canadiens through five decades, from the early 1900s through the '40s.

They are arresting frames of dramatically frozen figures, images published so often that, despite their hand-penned Rice Studio signature, credit is rarely given to their creator.

At the Verdun Auditorium, and wherever else the Verdun Dragons play, you'll find Bryer Rice, the late photographer's son, charting the statistics of the Ligue Nord-Americaine de Hockey club.

From his wallet, Rice will pull the press pass his father used to photograph a 1937 English royal visit, his 6-year-old son in tow that year for the London coronation of King George VI. He'll then pull from his memory the images of Hockey's greatest names walking into the studio, scrubbing his head as they passed through the door.

In the LaSalle home of Bryer and Shirley Rice hangs an oil painting of the bow-tied James Rice, one of his generation's premier portrait, wedding, baby and architecture photographers.

Bryer Rice, 73, held many jobs during his working life, from selling furniture at Ogilvy's to helping build Place Ville Marie, but photography was not among them.

Now retired to a part-time security post at LaSalle's Dollard St. Laurent Arena, he rewinds a century through an album of his father's work.

"When I was young, I'd help my dad to photograph babies and weddings, slipping tissue paper under women's skirts to puff them out," he said. "If Dad was sick, I'd do the wedding for him.

"But my mom didn't want me to make this a career. She figured we were outdated, with flash and door-to-door photography coming in. She was afraid of that."

Rice Studio was founded in Washington, D.C., in 1865 by Moses P. Rice, James's grandfather. Two years earlier, Moses Rice assisted the photographer Alexander Gardner at a sitting of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln.

It was 11 days before Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and a portrait from the session served as the model for sculptor Daniel Chester French, his monument now at Washington's Lincoln Memorial.

For years, this glass-plate negative was locked in James Rice's safe in his studio at Sherbrooke St. and Victoria Ave. Today, by way of the Smithsonian Institution, it is preserved by the Indiana Historical Society.

By the early 1900s, having arrived in Montreal from his native Nova Scotia, another young man named Rice was making a name for himself with a camera. And one of James Rice's earliest assignments also would be one of his most famous.

A decade before the birth of the NHL, he photographed the 1907 Stanley Cup-champion Montreal Wanderers. The Cup was left behind and later stolen, the anonymous thief holding it for ransom. But when the Wanderers offered not a penny for its return, the sterling bowl was left on the studio doorstep.

Rarely did Rice shoot action. But his studious portraits captured the competitive fire of Aurel Joliat, George Hainsworth and Morenz; Odie and Sprague Cleghorn and Clint Benedict; Butch Bouchard, Bill Durnan, Toe Blake and Maurice Richard.

Bryer Rice recalls Canadiens players trooping into his father's studio below the family's apartment, rumbling around in uniform and skates.

"The Stanley Cup was always there," he said, remembering that he might even have charged neighbourhood kids a nickel to touch the Hockey chalice.

"Dad would be in the back, building backdrops and risers, photographing the players individually and then grouping them later in a collage."

His father's connection offered other benefits to young Bryer. Bert Newberry, the Forum's superintendent of the day, would sort through piles of old equipment to outfit the boy and the size-12 feet he had by age 14.

"At one time, I was wearing Butch Bouchard's skates, Maurice Richard's stockings and Bill Durnan's sweater," Rice said.

His was a remarkable family. Among James's five brothers was Gitz Rice, a singer, songwriter, pianist, entertainer and lieutenant in the Canadian army whose patriotic songs boosted troop morale in the European trenches during the First World War.

Another was Charlie, who pooled a few dollars with James to help bankroll the early acting career of a Montreal-native, Rice Studio model.

Her name was Norma Shearer, and she became an Oscar-winning actress known as the First Lady of the Screen during Hollywood's early days.

James Rice never knew if he wanted to be a photographer or an entertainer. He'd sing and tell stories into the wee hours at local conventions, and during the Second World War, the U.S. air force put him on a plane to Greenland to entertain war-bound troops.

Rice, whose pals included Montreal mayor Camilien Houde and actor Mickey Rooney, was known as the "French-Canadian storyteller." In fact, he was an anglo through and through who simply had mastered a Quebecois accent.

His wife, Roberta Wood, was no less worldly. She had been courted by pro wrestler Ed (Strangler) Lewis and danced in English and Scottish chorus lines with the hugely popular entertainer Gracie Fields, dodging frisky fans after each show.

"Mom would carry pepper here," Rice said, suggesting the cleavage, "and throw it at anyone following them."

The Stanley Cup would lead a colourful life in the care of the photographer. Rice once jumped into a taxi and forgot it on the curb, getting a few blocks before returning to find it untouched.

And the trophy often spent its summers at the studio, at least when it wasn't being moved up to the apartment because it was getting underfoot.

A friend who managed Mount Royal Cemetery, Ormiston Roy, knew of Roberta's love of gardening, and he sent over 25 pots of geraniums. Overwhelmed, she repotted one in the Stanley Cup, then a long-stemmed bowl, in which the flowers bloomed wonderfully for months.

The official photography of the Canadiens was taken up by David Bier during the 1940s, for 45 years and 18 Stanley Cups, and then, about 20 years ago, by Bob Fisher, who also works today with Marie-Christine Boucher to preserve and catalogue the team's rich photo history in its Bell Centre archives.

James Rice died in 1958 at age 72, predeceased two years by his wife. His many boxes of large-format negatives went 50 or more years ago to a photo shop in Lachine, the last they've been seen.

The couple's only child, Bryer, has been involved in Hockey for as long as he can remember. He played, then coached, kept statistics for many minor-league teams and has been a fan forever.

The only photos being taken by the Rices now are snapshots of the four children of son Jim and daughter Terry-Lyn.

But the family legacy is secure, even in this digital age. Most every photo of the great Canadiens of the 1920s and '30s was dipped in developing chemicals at the Rice Studio.

Books and great-grandfathers might relate the lore of Georges Vezina, Howie Morenz and Aurel Joliat, but it's because of James Rice's focused eye that every legend has a face.

Original Story by Dave Stubbs
http://www.montrealgazette.com/columnists/dave_stubbs.html