|
Charles Schulz Passes Peacefully
A day before final comic runs
Feb. 13, 2000
By TIM TESCONI
Press Democrat Staff Writer
Charles M.
Schulz, the barber's son from Minnesota who sketched his way to
international fame as the creator of "Peanuts,'' the most popular comic
strip in the history of newspapers, died of a heart attack Saturday. He
was 77.
Schulz had been battling colon cancer since last fall. His
son, Craig, said Schulz died about 9:30 p.m. Craig Schulz said that
earlier Saturday his father "was fine -- like he'd been for the last week
or so.''
Although Schulz had been seriously ill for many weeks,
attorney and friend Ed Anderson said his death was sudden and unexpected.
And it was ironic, he said, that his death came the night before his
final new strip was to appear. Anderson said Schulz had been anxious about
today's strip and the fact that it signaled the end of his career.
"I
think it's been very difficult for him,'' Anderson said.
Schulz'
physical condition had been diminished, but despite all that he continued
to go to his office and the nearby Redwood Empire Ice Arena that he built.
And he had planned to go to Monday night's performance of the Santa
Rosa Symphony.
His speech was impacted, but he continued to talk with
friends and well-wishers who phoned him at his home.
A shy and
introverted man, Schulz avoided the limelight while making Snoopy, Charlie
Brown, Lucy and Linus household words and "Peanuts'' a cultural
phenomenon. Snoopy went to the moon aboard an Apollo spacecraft and Linus'
security blanket is in the dictionary.
"Peanuts'' appears in 2,600
newspapers, with an estimated 350 million people in 75 countries turning
to the comic strip each day to glean a simple joke, a dash of philosophy,
a dose of dark humor.
Schulz was Sonoma County's most famous resident
during the last half of the century, gracing the community with quiet
celebrity and the generous gifts his success made possible.
As the
creator of the most popular comic strip in history, the unassuming artist
enjoyed world acclaim and received many accolades. He won five Emmys, two
Peabody awards, the Order of Arts and Letters from the French government
and the Cartoonists Hall of Fame. He had his own star on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame and even a personal invitation to meet the Pope, who numbered
among the millions of Peanuts' fans.
The universal appeal of the
Peanuts characters has been attributed to "their sophisticated melding of
wry wisdom and sly one-upmanship.'' It was all part of Schulz' quiet
genius and a reflection of a personality streaked with melancholy.
"The only thing I really ever wanted to be was a cartoonist,'' Schulz
repeatedly said in interviews. "That's my life. Drawing.''
Paola
Muggia Stuff, the director of San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum, once
said in an interview that Schulz's personality was reflected in the
ageless characters he created -- characters whose desires proved
perpetually elusive. Charlie Brown pines for the Little Red Haired Girl he
can never approach. Lucy loves Schroeder, who only cares for Beethoven.
"He (Schulz) would love to say he was Snoopy but he's not often a
Snoopy personality,'' she said. "He's got the crabbiness of Lucy; he feels
as lonely and out of place as Charlie Brown. He's all of those
characters.''
The
nickname
Schulz's
association with comic strips began in infancy when he was nicknamed
"Sparky'' after Sparkplug, the horse in the Barney Google cartoon. The
name stuck, and Schulz was called "Sparky'' by friends and family
throughout his life.
From the time he could pick up a pencil, Schulz
was drawing, driven by an obsession to succeed at his chosen craft. He
remembered that visiting his dying grandfather in the hospital he chanced
upon a how-to book for wannabe cartoonists.
"I bet I read that thing a
thousand times,'' Schulz recalled.
He took drawing lessons from a
correspondence school and later taught there, picking up extra money by
doing the lettering, turning his jittery pencil scrawl into a firm ink
line.
There were the usual rejections from editors and syndicates.
They pronounced the strip innocuous and unprofessional. Schulz never
forgot those artistic slights, remembering in vivid detail the fruitless
trips from his home in Minneapolis to sell his fledgling strip.
Charitable
causes
But as
Sonoma County's most famous citizen and one of its leading philanthropists
during the more than 40 years he lived here, Schulz was respected and
admired for his enormous talents, quiet dignity and generosity. He built
Santa Rosa an ice arena so kids could have a place to skate and was the
benefactor, privately and publicly, to many causes.
His devotion to
the county is evidenced by the millions of dollars in charitable
contributions given to organizations ranging from Canine Companions for
Independence to the Sonoma County Community Foundation. In 1998, he and
his wife, Jean, pledged $5 million for a new high-tech information center
at Sonoma State University.
While not as easily recognized as Charlie
Brown, Lucy and the gang, he imparted his characters' magic and fame to
the community nonetheless. Schulz, ever protective of his personal privacy
and comfortable among a small circle of friends and loyal confidants,
managed to roam his adopted town of Santa Rosa with some level of
anonymity.
"I'm a different kind of celebrity,'' Schulz once said in
an interview. "Not like Joe Montana or Steve Young. I still can go
wherever I want, do what I want and people don't usually come up to me.''
Schulz moved here from his native Minnesota in 1958, eight years after
United Feature Syndicate acquired his 3-year-old strip called "Lil Folks''
and renamed it "Peanuts'' -- a name Schulz forever despised for its lack
of "dignity.'' He landed in Sonoma County almost by chance after looking
at properties in several other California towns, Atherton and Carmel among
them. He then drove to Sebastopol just for fun to see a 28-acre artist's
estate on Coffee Lane off Occidental Road. His family had grown tired of
Minnesota's snow, and they knew the Sebastopol ranch should be theirs as
soon as they went up the driveway, Schulz said in a 1997 interview.
Schulz moved to Santa Rosa 15 years later after marrying his second
wife, Jean. Schulz was drawn into her active social circle, becoming part
of Santa Rosa forever more.
Regular
folk
World
acclaim aside, Schulz remained a low-key, hard-working guy whose closest
friends were mostly regular folk he had come to know as a 40-year resident
of Sonoma County.
Asked once if he ever was overwhelmed by fame,
Schulz responded simply that he didn't think about it much. He said he
didn't think about money much either, but his talents made him a very rich
man. Forbes magazine has consistently named him one of the highest-paid
entertainers in the country, estimating his worth at more than $55
million.
"The strip is my reason for existence, not the money it
brings in. The editor is still my No. 1 client. I never wanted to be
another Disney,'' he said in an interview with Gaye LeBaron in 1997.
After 47 years of writing, drawing and lettering every Peanuts cartoon
ever printed, Schulz took a five-week break to celebrate his 75th birthday
in 1997 and spent much of his vacation just hanging around the Redwood
Empire Ice Arena on West Steele Lane, a short walk from the studio where
he created his strip.
The ice arena, which Schulz built 30 years ago
as a gift for the community, is not profitable, operating at a $1 million
annual loss. Ever prepared, Schulz stores 200 folding beds and blankets in
the arena just in case the city ever needs an emergency shelter in the
event of a disaster.
He knew from childhood that he wanted to be a
cartoonist, but said that he could not have predicted the enormity of his
or his characters success. There have been animated TV shows, books and
magazine covers, even an oft-performed musical.
The Times of London,
which profiled Schulz for his profound influence on British life, recently
called Charlie Brown and his eccentric beagle international icons of good
faith.
But Schulz, in an address before the Sonoma County Press Club,
said it's not for the benefit of mankind that he works.
"I just draw
what I think is funny,'' Schulz said, "and I hope other people think it is
funny, too.''
|
