Multi-talented London actor Victor Garber comes home to the stage that launched his career for Steppin' Out With the Stars! at the Grand Theatre. GARBER'S JUST GRAND Steppin' Out With the Stars! a musical show presented as part of the Grand Theatre's 100th-year gala dinner and auction fundraiser: Saturday, 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. at Grand Theatre, 471 Richmond St. The world of Victor Garber is jammed with an unforgettable cast of characters from stage and screen. Garber brings home a little of them all this weekend, when he returns to his native London and his show business starting point, the Grand Theatre. He is part of the cast for Saturday's big fundraiser, Steppin' Out With the Stars! "London was the Grand. My whole childhood was formed at the Grand Theatre," Garber says, looking back on London from New York. He still has family here. "It's such an important thing for London. I just can't imagine London without that theatre. It's just unthinkable to me." From New York, Garber can look ahead to when the summer filming begins for the second season of ABC-TV's hit Alias. He plays Jack Bristow, father of female super-secret agent Sydney Bristow. Jack Bristow is only the latest big-name role for Garber. His career began at the Grand more than 40 years ago when he was a kid called Vic. Early on, he was Donalbain, who knows "there's daggers in men's smiles" in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Later, he was to star for the first time as the smart young hero in Tom Sawyer. "Tom Sawyer was when I really got to ham it up and to show my stuff," Garber says. "That was my first starring role ... again, it was the beginning of it all." Garber points to London director Don Fleckser and the late Peter Dearing, then the old London Little Theatre's artistic chief, as Grand mentors who helped shape that beginning. "I don't how I ever developed the confidence to pursue it the way I did... New York was a long way from London, Ontario," Garber says. "It was in the rooms of The Grand, upstairs at the children's theatre on Saturday mornings and on the stage, that started everything for me. "I feel so strongly about that theatre." From Tom, Donalbain and other early roles has come a remarkable career. To pick a few of Garber's people, he is the only actor alive to play the doomed designer of the Titanic and Godspell's hippie-Messiah and a troubled Canadian diplomat devised by Timothy Findley and Daddy Warbucks and Liberace and an oil-slick of a creep in The First Wives Club and that super-spy's dad on Alias. On Broadway, Garber has earned Tony nominations for Damn Yankees, Lend Me a Tenor, Deathtrap and Little Me. Other credits include Art, Arcadia, The Devil's Disciple, Noises Off and Sweeney Todd. Along the way, off stage, he has been able to celebrate his birthday with another London theatre star, Kate Nelligan. She was born on March 16, too, a couple of years after Garber, who was born in 1949. At one time, the two former Londoners had houses near each other in New Jersey. For all his musical theatre stardom, Garber "has not sung for a long time." But he's dusting off a number dating from his appearance in the 1967 hit at the Grand, The Roar of the Greasepaint ... the Smell of the Crowd, for Saturday's show. He'll sing Who Can I Turn To? from that show. Garber may be joined by Denis Simpson, another star in Saturday's cast, for a number from Godspell. Garber has returned to London and the Grand since The Roar of the Greasepaint, an era-ender for him. Garber was moving on to Toronto in the mid-1960s -- as a teen performer and with his parents' support. Along would come his place in the Toronto singing group Sugar Shoppe and, eventually, Godspell stardom and all the rest. Now, it's full circle. "I haven't done anything like this for a long time," says Garber of Saturday's extravaganza. "I'm just really thrilled and honoured to be part of it and happy to be coming back." But he has stayed in touch with the Grand's story, including the recent documentary film, Let's Go to the Grand. Like Steppin' Out, the film is part of the Grand's 100th-anniversary celebrations. It includes charming footage of Garber and others reading their parts for Tom Sawyer, likely filmed about January, 1960. "I saw the documentary that (London filmmaker) Chris Doty did and I was so impressed with it," he says of Let's Go to the Grand. "He did a beautiful job. I was so happy about Don's (Don Fleckser) mention of Peter and the way he dealt with Peter Dearing. "He (Dearing) was a very important man in that theatre. He really changed everything around ... he really raised the bar." On Saturday, Garber, Louise Pitre, Jeff Hyslop and many other Grand-connected stars are on the the Steppin' Out bill. The bar can expect to be raised once more. If you go: What: Steppin' Out With the Stars! a musical show presented as part of the Grand Theatre's 100th-year gala dinner and auction fundraiser. Guest artists: The cast includes Louise Pitre, W. J. (Joe) Matheson, Jeff Hyslop, Virginia O'Brien, Wade Lynch, Michael Therriault, Judy Marshak, Denise Pelley, Tanya Rich, Satori Shakoor, Denis Simpson and Victor Garber. Other guests: Patrick McKenna is the master of ceremonies; Timothy French is the director and choreographer; Andrew Petrasiunas is the musical director; former London pianist Diane Leah is among the musicians; guest pianists are Chris Mounteer (Pitre) and David Warwick (Hyslop).