[1] Originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, he had local stage acting roles as a child, most notably as the young Ptolemy in a 1962 production of Caesar and Cleopatra.
[2] He and Willis formed La Troupe Grotesque in 1968,[3] moving to Toronto that year but struggling to get established until Riff Markowitz hired them as writers for his television series Party Game[4] and The Hilarious House of Frightenstein.
[4] They were also noted for the edginess of some of their comedy; after the news of the Jonestown massacre broke in November 1978, their show that evening opened with the duo distributing Kool-Aid to the audience.
[15] In 1985, Willis also created the radio comedy special If You Love This Government, a political satire in which Boncoeur did not appear on air but served as a producer.
They returned to his home again later in the evening; Boncoeur, who intended to go to bed early as he had another show the next day, allowed them to sleep on his couch for the night, following which Harris stabbed him in the carotid artery soon after he fell asleep.
The undertones of homophobia in response to his death, both the false claim about his HIV status and the sexual predation allegations, motivated his lifelong friend Lynn Johnston to bring a gay character into her comic strip For Better or For Worse to help combat anti-gay stereotypes and discrimination.