Former bank robber hopes film helps others

WINNIPEG — Steve Vogelsang — the disgraced former local sportscaster turned bank robber — hasn’t yet seen the upcoming documentary about his life airing on Amazon Prime Video next month, but he is hoping it will change the rest of his life.

Vogelsang said he hopes the documentary helps springboard him into a new career of advocacy for middle-aged men with mental illnesses.

“Nobody wants to be remembered as I would be remembered (now),” he told the Winnipeg Free Press Thursday from his home in British Columbia.

“If I did nothing to earn redemption, then I would just be remembered as this asshole, idiot, weirdo who had it all, so to speak, in Winnipeg, and frittered it all away. And the last we heard of him he was the world’s worst bank robber.

“I would instead want to be remembered as a guy who learned from his mistakes and then devoted the rest of his life to helping other people avoid similar mistakes. Everyone likes a comeback story, as long as your coming back has something worthwhile.”

Titled “The Sexiest Man in Winnipeg” — referring to an award he received from a now-defunct local publication — the documentary premieres on Amazon on May 9.

The film is co-directed by Charlie Siskel and Ben Daughtrey. Siskel, nephew of the late film critic Gene Siskel, also co-directed “Finding Vivian Maier,” which was nominated for the Academy Award for best documentary feature in 2014.

The Vogelsang documentary is narrated by Canadian-born comedian and actor Will Arnett, who is also one of its producers.

Sixty-one-year-old Vogelsang’s story is well known to Winnipeggers. He was a former CTV Winnipeg sports anchor and sports director who later became a journalism instructor at Red River College Polytechnic before he turned to crime when his personal and professional lives fell apart due to his depression.

Divorced and broke, Vogelsang robbed banks in Saskatchewan and Alberta. After his arrest, he was convicted of bank robbery in 2017 and sentenced to a total of six and a half years in prison. He was released on Feb. 17, 2022.

Former CTV sportscaster Lisa Bowes, who worked with Vogelsang in Winnipeg and is interviewed in the documentary, said she recalls when she heard he had been arrested.

“I was dumbfounded,” she said. “I just couldn’t reconcile that this was the same person I worked with … it made no sense whatsoever.”

Vogelsang said he hasn’t met Arnett and he didn’t receive any remuneration for his participation in the documentary.

“I could not receive any money or the implication could be I’m saying things I was paid to say,” he said.

Johnny Galvin, another producer of the documentary, said he is excited to tell the story.

“We initially touched base with Steve when he was still incarcerated,” he said. “It has been quite the journey … we have a unique approach to how we tell it.”

The official trailer shows Vogelsang re-enacting the robberies, dressed in clothes similar to what he was wearing at the time. It also shows him, with his hands on a steering wheel, driving an imaginary car with street scenes playing behind him.

“This is kind of an odd story, a unique caper if you will; there is an element of true crime to it,” Galvin said from Los Angeles.

“We have Steve doing his own recreations of the crimes, the bank robberies, and that is a way of going through that process … it meant, that in itself, was a journey, and not that traditional in filmmaking, especially documentaries. It was a way to deeper explore and have him retrace the steps through his journey, emotionally as well as physically.

“Objects, places, clothing all carry memories. In doing this documentary, a lot of it is about Steve looking and examining his own past — just as much as we get to examine it with him.”

Vogelsang said the re-enactments “were jarring and unpleasant” for him to go through.

“At the time, I had no empathy or sympathy, I didn’t even consider the bank tellers. That came later … revisiting this is coming face to face with the most unpleasant parts of this, that being, I’m a person who terrified someone … likely permanently.”

He said it’s why he doesn’t expect sympathy from anyone.

“Although I would have rather left (the bank robbery re-enactments) out of the documentary, it serves me right (that) I had to relive the pain — other people had to … but it also helps me to put those memories in the proper place, and I don’t revisit them now.”

Vogelsang said he expects the film will accurately tell the whole story.

“I trusted the producers that this would be used properly to both entertain people on the story and educate people on what was behind the story,” he said.

Vogelsang says he is currently working as a part-time waiter.

“I basically live as a retired person with a part-time job to keep me busy,” he said. “Do I hope to get back into media? No, that’s not top of mind.

“I’m going to create a job for myself, as an advocate for men’s mental health, particularly middle-aged men. You may be aware it is a really underserved part of our community. Suicide rates for middle-aged men are very high because we do not address our mental-health issues.

“I’m hoping … that I can become a voice that de-stigmatizes mental-health struggles for men and encourages men to just tell someone.

“If I had, my life would be different today.”

» Winnipeg Free Press