Dusty Cohl's image, trademark multi-pinned cowboy hat and mementoes from the film Outrageous adorn the Winter Garden Theatre stage during a tribute yesterday to the networker, bon vivant and professional best friend. (Stan Behal, Sun Media)

TORONTO - I'm not sure how many friends-of-Dusty-Cohl started their Friday the way I did -- getting all the way downtown before I realized I'd left my silver "cowboy hat" pin at home, pulling a U-turn, going home and getting it.

Some non-rational part of my brain told me Dusty would be (Crown) royally ticked if he saw me without it. This, despite the fact that Cohl -- the networker, bon vivant and professional best friend who was best known as a founder of the Toronto International Film Festival -- died Jan. 11 of cancer, taking the party with him.

But no, I wasn't neurotic. At an Elgin Winter Garden packed with pin-wearers yesterday afternoon, many of the speakers -- running the gamut from lawyers to politicians to actors to moguls to journalists -- spoke of the pin, which Cohl would present to his inner-circle "accomplices" (an inner circle, I must repeat, that filled a major theatre). And they spoke of the guilt that came from being spotted without it.

CTVglobemedia CEO Ivan Fecan, (who called Cohl "a 24/7 party -- who else would have a fully stocked bar at Princess Margaret Hospital right up to the end?") felt his pin and talked about how, if you weren't wearing it, "Dusty could guilt you like nobody except my mother."

CBC executive and ex-Toronto Sun entertainment editor George Anthony recalled being in a film festival conversation with Roger Ebert and John Candy, when, at one point, Candy said "Oh (bleep) Roger, don't tell Dusty you saw me without my pin."

And Toronto Sun editor-in-chief Lou Clancy thanked his wife Rhonda for reminding him to wear his.

Ebert's wife Chaz -- there as his proxy while Ebert recovers from his own cancer-related surgery -- said, "I've been to film festivals in South Africa, in India, and I have to tell you something, to see this pin on every continent, every film festival I've ever been to, I've seen a Dusty pin. He was bigger than life. I do believe he transcends the boundaries of this earth, and many things we'll see now and in the future, we'll know Dusty had a hand in it."

The hilarious anecdotes rolled out at the event -- presented by two of his best friends, lawyer Eddie Greenspan and filmmaker Barry Avrich. Amid words of comfort to Dusty's widow Joan, came the story of a life gleefully spent networking, fueled by cigars, Crown Royal whiskey and chutzpah, a life that left handprints on two film festivals (including Dusty's own vanity project, The Floating Film Fest) a basketball team (he was one of the early players in the quest for a Toronto NBA team), Norman Jewison's film centre and various lunch and breakfast clubs in greasy spoons and delis.

Ex-mayor David Crombie talked about being hyperbolically introduced to dignitaries as "the mayor of Canada" when Cohl was trying to drum up attention at Cannes for Craig Russell's Outrageous, which he was shepherding. Anthony also talked about how Cohl scored a screening of Outrageous by the legendarily tough critic John Simon, who was being wooed on people's yachts to watch movies. Dusty's pitch involved describing the movie and then simply saying "Do me one favour ... don't come." The contrarian Simon came and raved about it.

Despite an opening film called Citizen Cohl: The Untold Story, certain aspects of his past remained a mystery -- like what he did for a living after he gave up a lucrative gig as a real-estate lawyer.

Several speakers commented on his history of squatting in their offices and turning it into his own -- among them Greenspan, Fecan and Dusty's cousin Michael Cohl (whose career as a superstar rock promoter was inspired by Dusty's interest in music and advice).

But mostly, the speakers talked about their debt of gratitude -- such as actress Helen Shaver, who was in Outrageous and who extolled "Dusty's deep and bottomless heart."

Said Sun entertainment columnist Bruce Kirkland, "Of course, Dusty had an ego, but it was ego that was about bringing us all together to create something worthwhile. He was a unique person in that he saw the big picture, but he had a passion about who he was, too."

Sun movie critic Liz Braun gently chided the Festival for not naming a building or so much as a screening room after him, but quoted Christopher Wren (in Latin, the smarty pants) saying, "If you seek his monument, look around you."

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