Biography
American Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, columnist, raconteur and bon vivant.
Looking like a genial bulldog dressed in a brightly-colored sports jacket and slacks
and puffing a cigar, he begins an anecdote. His eyes light up, his face crinkles and
he transforms into an impish boy hoping the world will like him.
He survived a painful childhood, as his mom went into a mental institution when
he was three months old. Raised in the Hebrew Orphanage in New York, he saw his dad
once a week, and he was shifted into six successive foster homes. One of the dysfunctional
families he spent time with told such horrid stories of demons that he had nightmares for
years afterwards. He told of losing his virginity at 15 to a hotel chambermaid. When he
ran away to join the military in 1942 to see action in the South Pacific, he thought that
the Marines were the best foster family he'd ever had. After university, he moved to Paris
in 1948 where he joined the Herald Tribune for which he wrote a regular column, "Paris
After Dark."
Subject to bouts of deep depression, he periodically plunged into suicidal darkness.
He spent a month in a hospital in 1963 and again in 1987, during which time he continued
writing. His book, "Leaving Home," was a best-selling memoir of his traumatic childhood,
identifying the depths of his crippling depression. Going public about his illness in 1994,
he offered hope to the some 17.5 million adult Americans who suffer from the agony of
clinical depression. Buchwald turned his pain into humor with the creation of political
word cartoons and syndicated humor columns that were printed in 510 newspapers. Humor was
his salvation, the antidote to the misery of his youth. By 1981 he had written 24 books,
including three memoirs. The first, "Leaving Home," speaks of his childhood, his three-year
hitch as a WW II Marine in the Pacific and three years at USC. "I'll Always Have Paris"
covers the European years, a hilarious recounting of his adventures that took him from the
grungy Polish hotel in Montparnasse to the yachts of the "Onassi," from picking up girls in
the Louvre to squiring Gina Lollobrigida to a gala in Monaco, from his peasant palate to
gourmet dining, from counting pennies to bar-hopping at the St. Moritz. He also writes of
the courtship of his beloved wife Ann McGarrey, whom he married in 1952 and the adoption of
their three kids in Ireland, Spain and France. His books include, "I Am Not a Crook" in
1974 and "Down the Seine and Up the Potomac" in 1977. The Pulitzer Prize for Outstanding
Commentary was awarded to him in 1982. Four years later, in 1986, he was elected to the
American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
On January 8, 1990, Buchwald won a lawsuit against Paramount Pictures that awarded him
over $5 million. The money was his share of the profits on one of his script treatments
that was later used for a hit movie starring Eddie Murphy.
He and his wife were separated in 1992, and Ann died in 1994. Buchwald lived quietly
in a Washington, D.C. apartment, keeping in touch with family, friends and his three grandsons,
all the while writing. He alternated living in Martha's Vineyard where he often held court
with other famous visitors and neighbors. On June 16, 2000 he suffered a stroke that left
him in intensive care, serious but stable condition.
His health continued to fail. In early February 2006 he checked into a Washington, DC
nursing home as part of a hospice program and began to plan his funeral. One of his legs
had been amputated below the knee because of poor circulation and he was facing dialysis
and imminent death. Shortly afterwards, he made public his decision to forego dialysis,
telling one reporter that "I had two decisions. Continue dialysis, and that's boring to do
three times a week, and I don't know where that's going, or I can just enjoy life and see
where it takes me." In the style that endeared him to so many, he amused his visitors,
family, fans and the hospice staff with humorous snippets and matter-of-fact wisdom about
the end of life, preparing for his own death with grace and dignity. "I never realized
that dying was so much fun," he wrote in one column.
As he recounts it, he was on his way to heaven, but went to Martha's Vineyard instead.
In July 2006 he arrived home with a functional kidney, quipping "Some people bless their
hearts; I bless my kidney…. Now I have a new leg. I have a life. I have a book I hope to
finish soon. It's called "Too Soon to Say Goodbye" and the subject is, as he puts it,
"the man who wouldn't die."
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What Do You Think?
Art Buchwald has been amusing his fans for decades with his witty take on politics,
human foibles and, more recently, dying. He is a perfect example of the humorist who
points out the absurd as a way to deal with his pain, the satirist for whom any politician
is fair game, the writer who, with a few choice words, makes us see the ridiculousness in
many of society's golden calves. Over the last year he has taken on the prospect of his
imminent death and has made it seem like a lark.
- Where in the chart do you see his unfailing sense of humor and his brilliant use
of language to poke gentle fun at political decisions and actions, human foibles and
himself? Where do you see his battle with depression? Are the two (humor and depression)
linked astrologically in his chart?
- Buchwald has a cardinal T-square comprised of Jupiter above the Ascendant opposing
Pluto below the Descendant, both forming a square to Mars. Now throw in Saturn conjunct
the Midheaven, forming a sextile to Jupiter and a trine to Pluto. What might this
combination reveal about his personality and his life?
- What in his chart describes his difficult childhood that included a hospitalized
mentally-ill mother, time in an orphanage and foster care, and his running away into
the family of the Marine Corps?
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