PV'
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
while, Buchwald's father had to place
him in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum at
West 135th Street and Amsterdam Ave-
nue in Manhattan.
"I had quite a different background
in each home," Buchwald said. "But I was
the guy who always had a smile on my
face. People never knew what was going
on inside. I managed to get along very
well with my foster parents because I
knew how to please them."
His father finally gathered enough
money to reassemble the famliy when
Buchwald was sixteen. But after so many
years of being more or less on his own,
Buchwald couldn't stand all the mother-
ing from his three sisters. In the spring of
1942, he dropped out of school, ran away
from home and joined the Marines.
Buchwald was one of the few recruits
to pass through Paris Island who loved
the Marines. "I felt the Marines were the
only ones I ever cared about or who ever
cared about me." He served mainly in the
Pacific and remained in the service until
the fall of 1945, when he was discharged
in Los Angeles with the rank of sergeant.
He enrolled as a freshman at the Univer-
sity of California where the admission
office failed to notice Buchwald never
finished high school. Buchwald was al-
most kicked out when the school dis-
covered its mistake, but he remained as a
special student ineligible to receive a de-
gree. He stayed at the USC campus for
three years and edited the campus humor
magazine, wrote a column for the college
newspaper, and wrote a variety show,
"No Love Atoll."
An unexpected boon came
Buchwald's way in the spring of 1948: a
New York State veteran's bonus check for
$250. "It came so unexpectedly that I had
not already spent it before it arrived,"
Buchwald has written.
"I was informed that for $175 I could
buy a one-way ticket from New York to
Paris. Someone told me that I could also
study under the G.I. Bill of Rights in
Paris and that $75 dollars went much
farther there than it did in Southern
California. There was no telling how
much wine, women and song yoil could
purchase with your government check."
Buchwald hitchhiked to New York
and announced his gallic plans to his
father, whose only reaction was, "What
do you want to go to Paris for? Stay in
New York and learn a good trade."
In Paris, he enrolled in the Alliance
Francaise, ostensibly to study French on
the G.I. Bill. But he never actually
attended classes. He bribed the
attendance taker to mark him present
each day while he used his G.I. Bill
money to live it up in Montparnasse.
Money was short until Buchwald
discovered that an American was entitled
to gas coupons whether he owned a car or
not. These coupons could be sold on the
black market for as much as fifteen
thousand francs — about $40 — "a fine
supplementary income for students of the
time."
After a few months, Buchwald found
that even that extra cash didn't go too far.
Art Buchwald, author of "While Reagan Slept."
He decided to make an honest buck —
He somehow persuaded her, a devout
sort of. He landed a job as a Paris stringer
Catholic, to take an apartment that
for Variety. "Last night," he wrote his
shared a balcony with his. After their fre-
family of Parisian nightlife, "I went to a
quent spats, he would tiptoe over wearing
cocktail party for Alan Ladd. I had mar-
one of his oddball hats to beg forgiveness.
tinis, olives, and little caviar sand-
"It's very hard," Buchwald said, "for a
wiches. Then I went to a party for
woman to keep her window closed when
Cornell Wilde. I had meat sandwiches
there is a man on her balcony in boxer
and petite fours, washed down with
shorts and a miner's cap pleading to get
champagne. It's hard to interview these
in."
people because I've always got my mouth
After taking back an engagement
full of something."
ring during a quarrel, Anne thought
about returning to the States. One night,
A few months later, Buchwald
though, her friend Lauren Bacall, ad-
foisted a nightclub column on the Paris
vised her, "Art is young and roly-poly and
edition of the New York Herald Tribune.
a funny man about life, but he's the best
He received a "staggering sum" — $25 a
guy you'll ever meet, kid."
column — and soon expanded "Paris
After Dark" to include restaurants and
Returning from a week-long trip to
humor.
Morocco, Art pounded on Anne's door and
hollered, "I've decided the only answer to
In 1952, the Herald Tribune began
our mess is to get married." She opened
running Buchwald's column in its New
the door and fell into his arms. •
York edition. It soon was syndicated
around the country.
Anne is still a devout Catholic and
The Buchwald column achieved,
goes to church on Sundays. "We've had a
very successful mixed marriage,"
perhaps, its first notoriety in December
1957 when President Eisenhower was
Buchwald said. "Our religions haven't
disturbed anything in the house. She
attending a NATO conference in Paris.
Buchwald wrote a column satirizing the
hasn't inflicted her religion on me and
I've never inflicted my religion on her."
daily press briefings hosted by Ike's press
secretary, James Hagerty. He especially
Though Buchwald•doesn't go to.syn-
poked fun at reporters' fascination with
agogue, he does believe in God. "I believe
the most ordinary of Eisenhower's activi-
He punishes me a lot because every time I
ties ("What time did the President start
go to an airport He puts my plane in the
eating his grapefruit, Jim?")
last gate. I have to walk longer than any-
body else. He's very vindictive about me.
Hagerty was so enraged by the col-
Every time I arrive at a hotel, my reser-
umn he called a special news conference
vation isn't there. I think He sort of
to denounce it as "unadulterated rot."
punishes me for my sins. And I accept it
Hagerty's attack on Buchwald made
as such."
front pages all over the world on De-
cember 18, 1957, Buchwald had the last
Unable to have children of their own,
word. In his next column, he wrote, "I
the Buchwalds adopted three. Each is of a
• different nationality — Irish, Spanish,
have been known to write adulterated
rot, but never unadulterated rot."
French.
"I told them and warned them,"
Just about the time the Herald
Buchwald said, "that they were half-
Tribune picked up his column, Buchwald
Jewish. I told them I didn't want them
started wooing Anne McGarry, a former
copping out on me: 'You're half-Jewish
fashion coordinator who was working in
and you better take the flak — at least
Paris as a public relations consultant. A
half
the flak — for being Jewish.'
chance encounter led to dinner on the
Left Bank. At her doorstep, Anne wrote
In 1961, Buchwald returned to the
recently in her book Seems Like Yester-
United States for the first time since he
day, "Art's arm crept around me, pulling
had left it 13 years earlier. While travel-
me closer to him, and he kissed me with
ing about on a lecture tour, he suddenly
such sweet and surprising fervor that I
realized that he wanted to live here
didn't say a word. I had the single hap-
again. "Neither Anne nor I are really ex-
piest feeling I'd ever experienced." Art's
patriate types," he said, "and it seemed to
version is more to the point: "I was mak-
me that we'd been away from America
ing a pass, a simple straightforward pass,
long enough."
and to her it was some sort of commit-
In 1962, they moved to Washington.
ment. Good grief!"
Most of their friends told them not to
Friday, April 6, 1984
15
make the move. If he stayed put, he would
be the most famous American in Paris. If
he moved to Washington, he would be
another face in the crowd.
Buchwald moved.
He wrote.
He prospered.
He conquered.
Russell Baker said that Buchwald is
"lionized in Washington and he enjoys
being lionized." He is good friends with
Ethel Kennedy and often visits Hickory
Hill, her home in McLean, Virginia. His
Easter party in which he dresses up as an
over-sized rabbit is a Washington tradi-
tion. He is the favored keynote speaker
for every fund-raiser in the city and for
most around the country.
Buchwald's column now appears in
530 newspapers around the world. Along
with Russell Baker, he is one of the reign-
ing humorists of the day. Buchwald
thinks of himself as more of a dialogue
writer and of Baker as more of an es-
sayist. "I respect Baker's writing and I
respect what he does. It's a very small
business we're in. There's not too much
competition."
Buchwald was once told by Paul
Douglas, a former senator from Illinois,
"that it seems that in each generation the
American people give a license to only
one or two comedians or writers to make
fun of politics and politicians. He men-
tioned Finley Peter Funne, for instance,
and Will Rogers, and he said that he
thought I had the license. And when
you've got the license, you can get away
with murder — be praised for writing
things that another writer might be
stoned in the streets for having written.
"Of course, I've been told that men in
high government circles don't take me
seriously, and so I don't take them seri-
ously, either."
Buchwald doesn't gear the column
toward a mythical average reader. "I
write what pleases me. If it works, it
works. If it doesn't, tough luck." Yet, he
has discovered that women are more
faithful readers than men. "The woman
reader is much more loyal and likes me a
lot more. And she has influence on her
husband. I've had guys say to me, 'My
wife had me read your Column.' But I ha-
ven't had too many guys say to me, 'I
made my wife read your column.'
"I also find that women play a bigger
part in my life than men. I seem to want
to please women. The foster mothers in
my homes had more of an influence on me
than the foster fathers because I did have
a father — so-called. My three sisters
influenced me. So to this day, I'm always
trying to please women. I seem to get
along well with them."
After writing his column for over
three decades, Buchwald is "still not sure
what works and what doesn't. That's the
only reason I'm still in this business. If I
knew a sure thing, I would lose interest in
it. You know, laughter depends on whose
ox is being gored. How do people feel that
day, whether they can identify with it. I
find the columns I do on kids and the ones
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