PBS may not have made a documentary about Steve Ditko, but there’s one about Charles Schulz coming out next month. It will be on American Masters, Monday, October 29, from 9 – 10:30 PM ET. Here’s a brief write-up about the program.
This is a quintessentially Midwestern story of an unassuming, self-doubting man who, through expressing his unique view of the world, redefined the comic art form with “Peanuts.” His genius lay in depicting the daily collisions of insiders and outsiders, of mundane cruelties and transcendent hopes – seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. The “Peanuts” cast of characters is as familiar as our own siblings; their trials and tribulations speak of our families and evoke our childhood desperations. They are portrayed with whimsy and poignancy – and always with love and tolerance, each representing different facets of Schulz’ personality and his perspectives on 20th-century America.
I’m hoping they interviewed Donna Wold, Schulz’s real-life Little Red-Haired Girl. As everybody knows, Donna married somebody else. He was a fireman named Al. This is Schulz and Donna in April, 1950.
Cartoonist Jimmy Johnson’s ex-wife, Rheta Grimsley Johnson, in her book Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz, wrote about an encounter Schulz later had with Donna. By coincidence, Donna’s maiden name is Johnson. Her husband passed away some years ago. IMPORTANT CORRECTION — Al Wold is alive and well. See the comment by Mr. David Van Taylor the director of the documentary:
By 1956, when Charles Schulz was signing autographs at a downtown Minneapolis bookstore, he was married, a father, and beginning to ascend to that pinnacle of fame few ever reach. Donna, pregnant with her second child, waited in a long line to ask for his autograph. “That lady in front of me was saying, ‘I’m his biggest fan.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, no, you’re not!'”
Sparky signed Donna’s book with a rather generic inscription that bothers her slightly, even today: “For Donna, with sincere best wishes….” Later he gave her a ride to her parked car.
“I saw pictures of his wife in the newspaper; she looked very pretty,” says Donna. She read the news magazine accounts of his California digs and marveled that her unassuming Sparky had a four-hole golf course and an artificial waterfall. Years later, on a trip through California with Al, she stopped at the ice arena on the chance Sparky would be there. He wasn’t. “Al was good about it. He sat in the car in case I got a chance to talk to him.”
