This is a week of great contrasts for one of the most important figures in Ontario history. You may not know much about him (even though there is an enormous library bearing his name in downtown Toronto). But his story is truly Shakespearian.

Fifty years ago today, in the afterglow of the country’s Centennial celebrations, Premier John P. Robarts won his second consecutive majority government.

His Progressive Conservative party had already been in power for nearly two and a half decades. Robarts’s steady leadership had earned him the nickname “The Chairman of the Board” and ensured the PCs would stay in power another four years.

However, tomorrow — October 18 — is an anniversary of a very different kind. It was on that date in 1982 that the province’s 17th premier killed himself, bringing to an end a life of great triumphs and even greater tragedies.

Robarts’s career in provincial politics took a while to get going. He sat on the PC backbenches for seven years as the MPP for London, before getting the call from Premier Leslie Frost to join the cabinet. Eventually, in 1959, he became education minister. But his dynamic personality and leadership skills moved Robarts to the top of the heap two years later, when he won a thrilling six-ballot leadership convention at Varsity Arena.

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It was the perfect time to take the helm of Ontario Inc. The province was growing and modernizing rapidly. The treasury’s coffers were brimming with tax revenues. And so, throughout the 1960s, the Robarts government built.

Ontario got its first nuclear power plant in Pickering; we got GO Transit, because new suburbs demanded a new commuter rail system; and the province got dozens of new schools, several new universities, and the entire system of colleges of applied arts and technology, ushered in by Robarts’s education minister, Bill Davis. You can add the creation of TVO to that list as well.

Robarts thought science ought to be fun, thus we got the Ontario Science Centre. And he wanted kids from less well-off families to have a place to play during the summer, so Ontario Place was born on Toronto’s waterfront.

As the province continued to urbanize, Robarts’s government watched pollution levels rise to alarming rates. Thus, the first pollution control legislation was enacted. The list of public triumphs was a long one.

But Robarts’s private life was sadly not nearly as fulfilling. His wife Norah refused to move with their two adopted children to Toronto from London. As a result, the popular and charismatic Robarts spent a lot of time in the company of other women, haunting Yorkville jazz clubs. He had a blast, but you couldn’t say it was good for his marriage.

By the time his premiership ended, in 1971, there wasn’t much left of the Robarts’ marriage. When it became apparent his post-political career would be based in Toronto, the couple divorced, creating shockwaves back in London.

Soon after, Robarts married an American divorcee 28 years his junior named Katherine Sickafuse. Despite the age gap, the couple got on famously. Katherine did many of the things Norah had always refused to, going on hunting and fishing trips, and partaking of the exciting night life Robarts so enjoyed.

But two things took their toll: first, Robarts’ son Timothy killed himself in 1977, at the age of 21. He left a lengthy suicide note, blaming no one, but concluding that he was meant to live on planet Earth only for a short time. The loss devastated the former premier.

Then, in 1981, Robarts himself sustained a series of debilitating strokes. He became a virtual invalid, and was depressed over his inability to do any of the things he loved: hunting, fishing, enjoying a stiff drink, and, not to put too fine a point on it, making love to his wife.

And so, on October 18, 1982 — 35 years ago tomorrow — Robarts walked into the shower stall on the second floor of his Rosedale home, carrying with him the shotgun the PC Party had bought for him as a gift for all his years of public service, and swallowed the muzzle. He was 65.

For those that remember and loved the man, who was born 100 years ago this year, this week sums up both the great joy, and great sadness all embodied in one John Parmenter Robarts.

Steve Paikin’s book, Public Triumph, Private Tragedy: The Double Life of John P. Robarts, has recently been reprinted.