Jane Goodall has been famous for decades. At 90, the primatologist still isn’t used to it | Canada Voices

Jane Goodall was sitting in a chair, looking glum.

It was early afternoon at a Toronto hotel, and a photographer was shooting her portrait, directing her to look this way and that under the glare of a large light. Goodall was co-operating, albeit reluctantly. Her chin was in her palm, like a child in the midst of a punishment. She hates – hates – to be photographed.

Would she try a few shots with her jacket off?

Goodall let out a long sigh and let her green puffer slump to the floor. “I don’t care,” she said miserably. “I just want it to be over with.”

It’s not the Jane Goodall you expect. In most corners, hers is a name that carries with it saintlike status – a name evocative of trees being planted and chimpanzees being cuddled, of kindness and goodwill. And for the past 60-plus years, ever since her seminal work detailing the social lives of chimpanzees was published in National Geographic, Goodall has been a household name. The 90-year-old has been famous for entire lifetimes – for so long that most people can’t remember when she wasn’t a household name.

Despite living a very public life, she still has a complicated relationship with the spotlight. “I didn’t choose this,” she said, gesturing at the camera and the publicists around her. She was in Toronto ahead of a speech she would deliver the next day at a 2,000-seat concert hall in Kitchener, Ont.

“The first time I was walking in the street and was recognized, I was so horrified,” she said. “I hated it. I tried to hide from journalists.”

So how did she wind up being here? She has a few different versions of that story.

Sometimes, Goodall begins the tale at the age of 1, in London, England. That’s when her father gave her a stuffed chimpanzee – a toy she named Jubilee. (It now tours in a bulletproof box, looked after by the National Geographic Society.)

Other times, she’ll begin the story at the age of 23, when she first travelled to Kenya and met the archeologist Louis Leaky. It was Leaky who encouraged her – despite her lack of scientific training – to go to Tanzania to study primate behaviour.

Goodall’s work at Gombe National Park would redefine our understanding of humans in relation to the world around us. Before Goodall, scientists were convinced that humans were distinct in our abilities. Her work showed time that in many cases animals not only matched our physical abilities, but our social ones, too: They formed bonds, and displayed personalities and emotions.

“We’d been very, very arrogant,” she said.

Other times still, Goodall begins her story in 1986. That’s when she learned, at a conference in Chicago, about the effect deforestation was having on chimpanzee populations. It’s also where she first saw images of animal testing in laboratories, and the cruelty inflicted upon the great apes in captivity.

“I went to that conference as a scientist, and left as an activist,” she said. “I just had to try and do something.”

That’s around the time when Goodall’s perspective on fame began to shift.

“I realized that, if I want to make a difference – if I want to help people understand the urgency with which we need to protect chimpanzees and the environment – then I must make use of this fame.”

There’s also the fact that people just really like seeing her. The day before, she was recognized while waiting in a customs line at Toronto Pearson International Airport. Parents and kids alike crowded around, wanting photographs.

“It makes people so happy,” she said. “If just seeing me can make people happy, what nicer thing can you do?”

These days, Goodall tours, on average, 300 days out of the year. Most of it is on behalf of her foundation, the Jane Goodall Institute, which runs programs aimed at wildlife conservation and environmental preservation. She’s also an outspoken advocate for action on climate change.

This year, her tour is an extended celebration of her 90th birthday. Before Toronto, she’d made appearances in Tampa Bay, Fla., and in Los Angeles (including an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert). After Canada, she flew to Paris, where she delivered a speech at UNESCO’s headquarters. Even after all these years, everyone still wants a piece of her.

By Goodall’s own estimation, she’s had at least 30 birthday cakes since her actual birthday back in April. “Luckily, I don’t have to eat them all.”

Resting beside her at the Toronto hotel was a cardboard sign that she’d been carrying around on her tour. It had the words “Vote for Nature” written across it in what looked to be black Sharpie.

Richard Branson had held it up in a selfie during her stops in Los Angeles, she said. So too did Hillary Clinton and Prince Harry. “Leonardo DiCaprio – his mother – held up the sign.”

This was ahead of the U.S. election, and she wanted to remind people that the only way to see real change is to vote at the ballots.

“So many people are fed up with politicians, so they don’t bother to vote,” she said. (During her appearance on Colbert’s show, she drew a comparison between the chimpanzees she’s studied with today’s lawmakers. “When you see two males competing for dominance, they stand upright, they swagger and have a furious face and shake their fists. Doesn’t that remind you of some male politicians?”)

Given the urgency of the climate crisis, she said, there’s no excuse not to participate. “We’re in a very, very crucial time. So look at the two candidates and find out which one is most likely to have some kind of environmental program to save the environment.”

And though Ms. Goodall doesn’t endorse specific candidates, she does make her position on certain issues known. She’s not an advocate of carbon taxes, for example. “In the long-term,” she said, “all it does is encourage the big corporations to go on putting CO2 in the atmosphere, so it’s carrying on with business as usual.”

Of course, it’s owing to her fame that she’s able to broadcast her message.

So has she enjoyed any part of her birthday tour? She grimaced. “It’s been total hell,” she deadpanned.

But then she reconsidered. There was one stop, in California, where she was surprised on a beach with 90 dogs to mark her 90th birthday. “I really, really enjoyed it.”

Though her name will forever be associated with chimps, Goodall’s favourite animals are actually dogs. She grew up with one (a black-and-white mixed breed named Rusty), and there’s always a dog to visit with when she returns to the home she shares with her sister in England.

As the interview wound down, her mood visibly relaxed. She was looking forward to a bit of rest, some space to relax before her speech the next day.

Not without finishing the job first, however.

She reiterated the importance of voting, and of individual action. If we lose hope, she said, we’re doomed.

“The message is this,” she said, slowing her words to make sure each one was coming across. “Every one of us makes an impact every day. We get to choose what sort of impact.”

With the interview over, one of the publicists leaned over to make a confession: Unbeknownst to Goodall, there was yet another photographer waiting upstairs. Yet another photo shoot.

The publicist whispered this warily, watching as Goodall stood up to leave.

But before anyone could say anything else, Goodall stopped. She turned around and looked at the people behind her. “Would either of you like a photo?”