The famous columnist Art Buchwald has died at age 81. Buchwald passed away from kidney failure in Washington at the home of his son reported by his family. Buchwald was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1982.
(Media-Newswire.com) - The famous columnist Art Buchwald has died at age 81. Buchwald passed away from kidney failure in Washington at the home of his son reported by his family. Buchwald was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1982.
Arthur "Art" Buchwald ( October 20, 1925 - January 17, 2007 ) was an American humorist best known for his long-running column in The Washington Post newspaper, which focused on political satire and commentary. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Outstanding Commentary in 1982 and in 1986 was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Buchwald was also known for the Buchwald v. Paramount lawsuit, which he and partner Alain Bernheim filed against Paramount Pictures in 1988 in a controversy over the Eddie Murphy motion picture Coming to America. Buchwald claimed Paramount had stolen his script idea. He won, was awarded damages, and then accepted a settlement from Paramount. The case was the subject of a 1992 book, Fatal Subtraction: The Inside Story of Buchwald V. Paramount by Pierce O'Donnell and Dennis McDougal.
In February 2006, Buchwald checked himself into a Washington, D.C. area hospice. Although his kidneys were failing, he elected to forego kidney dialysis, saying that he wished to finish his days his way and to avoid end-of-life ailments that befall so many elderly individuals. However, his health did not fail as rapidly as he expected.
In June 2006, Buchwald was again interviewed by Diane Rehm after leaving the hospice. He reported that his kidney was working and that he "blesses him [sic] every morning. Some people bless their hearts, I bless my kidney." He reported he was looking forward to getting a new leg and visiting Martha's Vineyard.
In July 2006, Buchwald returned to his summer home on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, a place he never expected to see again. While there, he completed a book titled, Too Soon to Say Goodbye, about the five months he spent in the hospice. Eulogies that were prepared by his notable friends, colleagues and family members, but were never delivered, are included in the book.
Art Buchwald was the son of Joseph Buchwald, a curtain manufacturer, with three sisters: Alice, Edith, and Doris. He grew up in a residential community in the Queens Borough of New York City. He did not graduate from high school, and ran away from home at age seventeen.
He wanted to join the Marines but was too young, so he lied about his age and bribed a drunk with half a pint of whisky to sign as his legal guardian. From October 1942 to October 1945, he served with the U.S. Marine Corps, attached to the Fourth Marine Air Wing. He spent two years in the Pacific Theater and was discharged from the service as a sergeant.
On his return, Buchwald enrolled at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on the G.I. Bill. At USC he was managing editor of the campus magazine Wampus; he also wrote a column for the college newspaper, the Daily Trojan.
In 1948 he left USC, without having earned a degree, and bought a one-way ticket to Paris. Eventually, Buchwald got a job as a correspondent for Variety Magazine in Paris. In January 1949, he took a sample column, on which he had been working, to the offices of the European edition of The New York Herald Tribune. Titled Paris After Dark, it was filled with scraps of offbeat information about Parisian nightlife. Buchwald was hired and joined the editorial staff. His column caught on quickly, and Buchwald followed it in 1951 with another column, Mostly About People. They were fused into one under the title Europe’s Lighter Side. The column in which Buchwald explains Thanksgiving Day to the French people in 1953 is reprinted every November with ceremonial regularity. Buchwald’s columns soon began to recruit readers on both sides of the Atlantic. On August 24, 1959, TIME magazine, in reviewing the history of the European edition of The Herald Tribune, reported that Buchwald’s column had achieved an "institutional quality."
During this particular time, while in Paris, he became the only correspondent to substantively interview Elvis Presley, both at the Prince de Galles Hotel, where the soon-to-be Sgt. Presley was staying during a week-end off from his Army stint in Germany, as well in places like Le Lido, where Buchwald witnessed, first hand, Presley's interaction and that of his entourage, with the girls at the world's most famous nightclub. Presley's impromptu performance at the piano, as well as his singing for the showgirls after most of the customers had left the nightclub, became legendary following its inclusion in Buchwald's bestselling book, "I'll always have Paris".
Buchwald returned to the United States in 1962 and was syndicated by Tribune Media Services. His column appeared in some 300 newspapers.
Buchwald had written some 30 books, including Leaving Home ( Putnam, 1994 ); I’ll Always Have Paris ( Putnam, 1995 ); I Think I Don’t Remember ( Putnam, 1987 ); and Stella in Heaven: Almost a Novel ( Putnam, 2000 ). Buchwald's most recent book, Beating Around the Bush ( Seven Stories, 2005 ) is a collection of his newspaper columns.
Buchwald adopted three children and lived in Washington, D.C.
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