Newman, Paul S.

Paul S. Newman was born on April 29, 1924, in New York City. He said, "Being premature and weighing a mere 2.2 pounds, I was rushed to the incubators, but not one was unoccupied. So on my first night in this world, I was forced to sleep with a girl ... it became addictive later on." At the age of 2 1/2, he was sent to the Walden School, a highly progressive John Dewey-type private school. There he learned how to hammer nails and cut wood, as well as dictate "poems" to his teacher. However, he was not taught to read, and by age 6, he was transferred to the Jewish Center in NYC, an orthodox private school. He spent his days learning to read left to right and right to left. He went on to Townsend Harris, a three year specialized high school where he was exposed to an intense education with fellow "smart guys." He joined the Boy Scouts at age 12 and by age 13 was the youngest Scout allowed to attend the 1935 World Jamboree in Holland, thanks to his high rank. He ended up as an Eagle Scout with 54 merit badges -- many of which figured in his comic book writing background -- from Indian Lore to Tracking & Stalking. At age 16, his parent correctly decided I was too young to go to any of the three out-of-town colleges that had accepted him, so he stayed "local" attending another brain-testing school -- City College. After one year at CUNY, he transferred to Dartmouth, which offered grass around its building and a whole pageantry of non-New Yorkers. He enjoyed it until he enlisted in the Army on October 3, 1942 and remained in the service until July 6, 1946. He served for some 6 months in the USA as a T-5 in Bomb Disposal, which fortunately proved to be a "quiet" experience. He went on to become a 1st lieutenant serving on a major troop ship in Special Services and Information & Education. He served in all three theaters in the war and earned a Battle Star, Italian Campaign. He returned from the war and went back to Dartmouth for a while, but left when he got a Broadway option on Dollar Diplomacy, a play which he had written. The play lost its financing, forced Newman to find work on the radio show, A Date with Judy . The producer of this show sent Newman over to National Comics (DC) that was publishing the Date with Judy comic book. By the end of the year, Newman had penned stories for Patsy Walker, Real Clue Crime Stories, Crime Detective, Hopalong Cassidy, The Two-Gun Kid, Outlaws, and The Texan . He has been married twice, first to Zoe, whom he married in 1949 and had two children, Peter and Lisa. In 1977, Newman and Zoe divorced and he moved back to NYC, by which time the comics were in a "periodical" slump, and he was writing many industrial films and speeches for top level corporate executives. He married Carol in 1985, and takes credit for "commercializing" her artistic talents, most specifically for doing the storyboards for the DarkWing Duck comic. Newman passed away on May 30, 1999. While Paul S. Newman is most known for his work on The Lone Ranger and Turok, Son of Stone comic books, these are only two titles of the approximate 300 he has written since he began in 1947. The breadth of his storytelling abilities spans from Fat Albert to G.I. Joe or Nancy to The Twilight Zone and is spread out over the approximately 4,121 comic book stories (over 36,000 pages of comics) he has had published. A complete listing can be found in January 1997 issue of the Comic Book Marketplace .

From the guide to the Paul S. Newman Collection, 1995, (Bowling Green State University - Browne Popular Culture Library)