If there had been a handy pencil and paper in the delivery room when Dwight was born, I'll bet he would have grabbed them and started writing about his arrival on the scene. We would have a record of all the action at the Cincinnati hospital - he would have interviewed all the nurses, especially the pretty ones, and the attending physician. He certainly would have noted the color of the nurses' eyes (and made flattering remarks!) and found out if the doctor knew anyone famous. He might have initiated a nursery newsletter, or started his life-long habit of keeping a diary. We'd get all the facts - or else a darn good story!

Middletown, not Cincinnati, was the home of Dwight's early childhood. He lived there with his parents, Mary Josephine (Josie) and William Albert Newton and an assortment of Newton aunts, uncles and cousins.

Middletown wasn't "big" like Cincinnati, but it was big enough to warrant visits from touring vaudeville shows and entertainers, all of whom delighted young Dwight. Harry Houdini made a particularly large impression on Dwight, who decided to replicate one of the great master's "escape from bondage" tricks. The trick involved little Dwight being tied to a chair that was precariously balanced on another chair on a table. The blood stain from injuries sustained in this failed attempt at extrication were still visible on the floor in 1996 when he paid a visit to his old home town.

William Albert died in 1911 after a long illness. Josie tried to make a go of it in Middletown for a few years, then decided to build a new life in the wilds of northern British Columbia, homesteading with her sister Sadie and Sadie's husband Jack Scott. Jack and Sadie had gone up to the Peace River country some years earlier, cleared a parcel of land and built a little log cabin near Rolla. Somehow they convinced Josie that this was a good place for a single mother to raise her eight year-old son. What boy wouldn't flourish in such a place?

There were Indians, horses, cattle, all sorts of wild animals - it was the kind of place where legends are made! Dwight's kids learned the Canada stories by heart: "The Lynx in the Trap," "Dwight and the Hen House Chorus," and the exciting adventures of Dwight and his beloved horse Rodney (bring out the Kleenex box for these.) These were the equivalent of Laura Ingalls Wilder's classic stories. While they - like Wilder's - were wondrous tales of long ago and far away, Dwight's were REAL, because Dad told them.

His memories of life in Canada were the strongest and longest of his life. In his final years, when other memories slipped away, he was still able to reminisce to any interested audience about his childhood on Wild Rose Ranch. It didn't matter if some of the characters changed and the fine details got rearranged; the plots were the same (even artistically embellished) and the punch lines still got a laugh.

Josie did not allow her Dwight complete freedom, however. She was adamant that her precocious boy would get an education. In the earliest years she taught him herself; later he attended the one-room schoolhouse 4 miles away. For 8th and 9th grades, Josie took him to Edmonton to spend the winter months attending Alberta College North. He always attributed the start of his journalism career to this period. He had become active in various boys' organizations around town, ,and contributed a column to the Edmonton Journal, reporting on the boys' activities. His column eventually expanded into an 8-page tabloid.

His obvious talent as a writer rather than a budding farmer or cattle rancher led Mother to think about a different place to raise Dwight than the Canadian frontier. (The cold winters and hard work may have had something to do with her decision!) Josie and Dwight resettled in Los Angeles, where Dwight enrolled at Belmont High School for 10th grade, and the pattern of the next 75 years of his life began to take shape. He studied, of course, but he also wrote plays and school songs, become involved in drama, studied violin, and worked. He landed a job as a copyboy for the Los Angeles Examiner, and worked from 8 p.m. to midnight.

Dwight never finished high school (nonetheless, he taught radio journalism at Stanford many years later.) Economic necessity took over, so he began to work full time at the paper. Still hopeful of becoming an actor, however, he attended Eagan's Dramatic School at night. His photos of the period show a young man in love with life: Dwight in his Stutz BearCat, Dwight surrounded by pretty girls, Dwight playing tennis or being silly at he beach, Dwight on stage, and finally, Dwight with a knock-out beauty with great big eyes, Lillian Rosemund Meyer.

He always said he met her and kissed her and that was that - they fell in love. The story was that they both attended the drama school, and were asked to do a scene together. They hadn't met before then. The scene involved a kiss...they must have put their hearts in it, because it was the start of something big. They married in 1928 and shared 67 years together. Four kids, seven grandchildren and six great grandchildren resulted from that scene. They also got new names at the school; to friends and family, they became Ricky (Dwight) and Ronnie (Lillian) after performing in Philip Barry's You and I. "Ronnie" stuck, and Lillian carried that name for the rest of her life.

The Examiner eventually edged out drama as a career choice, though drama certainly continued for "fun" for many years and influenced the direction of his journalism. He and Ronnie were involved at the Pasadena Playhouse, meeting budding actors who actually made it big, i.e., Lloyd Bridges and Robert Young. He collaborated with other hopeful writers and lyricists, trying to find his niche. Come Back to Hollywood, Molly, written in 1925, never took off, but it should have. It's a great song for the time. Even after Dwight and Ronnie relocated to San Francisco in 1929, when Dwight was busy in his new job at the San Francisco Examiner, the couple enjoyed evenings out by participating in Pine Street Players. Dwight wrote scripts and lyrics, and both he and Ronnie played leading roles.

Dwight's involvement with drama was initially discouraged by the editors at the Los Angeles newspaper, because it took up too much of his time. He had graduated from copyboy to librarian (he reorganized the LA Examiner library, making it the first modern newspaper morgue on the west coast.) Because of his excellent talent for research - he could locate anything in a flash - he worked closely with The Chief himself, William Randolph Hearst. He got calls at all hours of the day or night to "GET SOMETHING TO THE CHIEF RIGHT AWAY!"

But Dwight's flair for drama and the need for extra cash to support his growing family got him involved in radio in spite of The Chief. In 1935 he became the man with all the answers on "Ask Mr. Jones" on KYA, an Examiner-owned radio station. That success led to other shows: he developed, wrote and voiced "Pioneers in the News," (KYA) "Fighting Front Facts," (NBC) "Schoolcast" and "Uncle Harry," a show on which he read the Sunday funny papers. He wrote the commercials for that show as well. Schoolcast ran for 20+ years and was often broadcast live from schools around the Bay Area. Until quite recently strangers stopped Dwight at the bank or in a restaurant and asked if he remembered them - from a 6th grade live Schoolcast program!

When television emerged on the local scene and refused to go away, the Examiner started Dwight on a new track. He would be the paper's radio and TV critic. Since no one really believed television would truly catch on, the emphasis was to be radio, but that didn't last long. From 1949 until his retirement in 1976, Dwight Newton was San Francisco's Dean of Television. He schmoozed, he interviewed, he traveled, he spoke, he challenged the industry to strive for excellence (his opinion of early children's shows: "pig slop!") and wrote and wrote and wrote. Days and nights were governed by The Deadline.

He sweated bullets the last few hours before the deadline in his San Mateo home office, nervously chewing on carrot sticks, cabbage chunks or cut-up pieces of rubber. (This was the period after he gave up smoking. He made his dentist rich from all the emergency treatment for cracked teeth, broken crowns, abscesses and root canals.) Until he became the proud owner of the world's first fax machine, an incredible, magical contraption that could transmit his typed column from home to the newsroom in a mere half-hour, he drove the copy to the office to meet the 3 A.M. deadline.

Dwight's diaries from his working life portray a man who had more hours in a day than the rest of humanity, and certainly more stamina. On any given day he had at least 6 or 7 projects going: "To (TV station) to preview (a show). Lunch with so-and-so to talk about idea for radio script to air next week. Back to office to write draft of script, call voice talent. Write column. Donate blood. Write Best Bets. Start tomorrow's column. Meet Ronnie for dinner to catch act at St. Francis. Finish column. Home. Bed."

Now and then one finds notes that indicate family activity as well - he took the kids to the doctor's, chaperoned parties, and dealt with various school superintendents regarding truant sons. He buried a son, walked his daughter down the aisle, happily entertained grandchildren, went birding with Ronnie and took regular "10-Downs." (Walks to locations picked from the 10th address found on random pages of the telephone book.) He found time to play the piano, read books on a myriad of topics and to keep up a social life with old friends. But throughout the pages, The Deadline was always felt in the background, making the engine go.

Any time off was precious, spent with the family. In 1953 the family purchased a summer home in Ben Lomond, and it quickly became his haven. Probably because of his busy work life in which he was always dealing with people, his private life was quiet and guarded, fiercely protected by Ronnie. Ben Lomond was a place where he could live a totally different life. He pruned trees, repaired fences, painted, puttered with cranky plumbing, took sun baths, swam in the river, and took the kids to Santa Cruz to the movies. Without Ben Lomond, he would have burned out and not lived to be 94 years old.

By the time Dwight retired, he had done just about everything he'd dreamed of doing as a kid. He wanted to meet famous people: he met plenty of them. One of his prized possessions to the end was photo of Lucille Ball, signed "For Dwight, Love Lucy." He wanted to be on stage: he attained a "stage" reaching an audience bigger than a kid in Middletown ever could have imagined. He wanted to travel, and his job took him all across America and throughout Europe. He liked pretty ladies and he married a beautiful woman whose beauty came from deep inside of her and lasted long after the "good looks" faded. He had his shortcomings - some of which he admitted and many that he didn't (a man with an ego is not always easy to live with) - but as he said, "at least I was never arrested!"

Dwight didn't have his pencil and paper on the day he was born, but he had them close by on the day he died. His night table was littered with the folded note papers and pencil stubs he always carried in his pocket "just in case he had to take notes." He was a newsman to the end. Did he know he was bowing out on the very day his beloved Examiner died? Dwight - if it matters to you now, you made the final deadline. The 4-star edition, no less.

Dwight passed away in his sleep on Tuesday November 21, 2000, at the age of 94, ironically on the day that the Hearst Corp. gave up his beloved newspaper. He was inducted in to the NATAS Silver Circle in 1989. He was also a member of Bay Area Broadcast Legends.

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Dwight Newton in his prime.	On a promotion tour in LA with "Cuddles".
Dwight breaking bread and chatting with Dinah Shore.	In 1951 at the new KPIX Studio (Greenwich & Van Ness) time capsule placement.

Dwight cutting a rug with his favorite
dancing partner, Miss Nancy of
Romper Room.