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Peter C. Newman
Peter C. Newman
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The son of a wealthy Jewish-Czech factory
owner, Peter Newman and his family were forced to flee a life
of comfort and privilege in Europe at the outbreak of the
Second World War. Their journey from Czechoslovakia to a farm
in Canada included being machine-gunned by a Nazi dive-bomber
on a beach in Biarritz while waiting to board the last ship
to escape from France in 1940. In 1944, Peter enrolled as
a “war guest” at Upper Canada College –
the training ground for the children of Canada’s most
wealthy and powerful families. It was here that he would meet
many of the leaders of business and politics that he would
eventually document.
Newman embarked on a remarkable career, which included writing
for the Financial Post, saving Maclean’s Magazine from
extinction, and heading up the Toronto Star. As a novelist,
he has written about every Prime Minister from Louis St Laurent
to Paul Martin and produced more than 20 books, including
Renegade in Power a portrait of John Diefenbaker, and the
hugely popular Canadian Establishment series. Journalist Alan
Fotheringham and publisher Anna Porter discuss Newman’s
success and his critics.
Despite his achievements, Newman always felt like an outsider
in WASP society and recalls the distress of being labeled
a “Jew boy”. Newman also speaks candidly about
failed relationships – “We divorced over religious
differences,” he says of his breakup with second
wife Christina McCall, “I thought I was God and
she didn’t.” Now 75 and happily married for
the fourth time he says he has finally found a balance, but
regrets that it has come so late in life.
Original Air Date - February 10, 2005
Links
Here
Be Dragons, Peter C. Newman's autobiography (from McClelland
and Stewart)
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sites)
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