Paul Newman the writer is about to become famous. After more than 50 years of obscurity, Newman has made a name for himself.
"Finally at this stage of my life," Newman says, "I'm getting recognition."
The 1998 Guinness Book of World Records, just out, showcases the work of Paul Sylvan Newman of Columbia. Call it a lifetime achievement award for the 73-year-old man whose characters and stories are known by generations of readers.
But until now, Paul S. Newman has been the man behind the mask.
For a writer, anonymity is the ego's migraine. If work is the Important Thing, then recognition is the Son of the Important Thing. Either way, the business of writing is a real pounder.
Paul Newman has been a writer ever since he could think of something to write. Ever since his mother, May Newman of Manhattan, told her only child that he was going to be a writer one day. (Newman was born in 1924 -- within a year of that other Paul Newman's birth.)
Newman's father, Joseph Newman, a theater ticket broker, must have agreed. Maybe his son could make a living as a writer. But first, his son made a name for himself as a Boy Scout. Paul collected a bunch of merit badges; at 14, he taught at Scout camp. One badge was awarded for his ornithological mastery. The boy had become a bird man.
Besides merit badges, the boy clung to his Space Commander Pin, as seen in the Buck Rogers comic adventures. Buck Rogers: There was a real hero, the boy thought. Strong, kind, clean-cut, Buck Rogers always did the right thing. Paul loved the unsigned, paneled stories in Buck Rogers comic books. The cliffhanging plots held him tight. He fell for every teasing "Meanwhile "
At school, Paul advertised his literary ambitions. He signed papers and yearbooks, "Paul S. Newman, Poet Laureate." He was kidding, but he was serious. "I was always looking for a title," Newman says. He wanted to write poems, songs, movies, novels. Mainly, he wanted to be a playwright.
"That was his dream," says his wife, Carol Newman.
In college at Dartmouth, Newman discovered Shakespeare, who became his new Buck Rogers. He began reading and later collecting 17th-century English plays, mainly comedies from Etherege to Fielding. He wrote a play, "Dollar Diplomacy," that was produced at his college.
