Laid Back Washington

Art Buchwald was born in Mt. Vernon, New York, in 1925, and spent his childhood in a series of foster homes. When he was seventeen, he left home to join the Marines and spent three-and-a-half years in the Pacific. On his return to civilian life, Buchwald enrolled at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he was managing editor of the campus humor magazine. In 1948 his expatriate urge got the better of him and Buchwald headed for Paris when he became a correspondent for Variety. In 1949 he took a trial column on which he had been working in the offices of the European edition of The New York Herald Tribune. Entitled "Paris After Dark," it was filled with scraps of offbeat information about Parisian nightlife. Buchwald was hired, and in 1951 he started another column, "Mostly About People," featuring interviews with celebrities in Paris. Early in 1952 the editors of the Tribune brought Buchwald's columns to readers in the United States by fusing the two columns into one with the title of "Europe's Lighter Side," thereby establishing his international reputation. Buchwald returned to the United States soon after and set up shop in an office on Pennsylvania Avenue, just two blocks from The White House. His column is now distributed by The Los Angeles Times Syndicate and appears in more than 550 newspapers worldwide. He has written 30 books, including two bestselling memoirs, Leaving Home and I'll Always Have Paris, published by G.P. Putnam's, and a Broadway play. In 1982 he won a Pulitzer Prize for outstanding commentary, and in 1986 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Buchwald's was inspired to write his latest book, Stella in Heaven, a foray into fiction, after the death of his own wife. Art Buchwald lives in New York City.