[Deathwatch] David Newman, screenwriter, 66

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Posted on Mon, Jun. 30, 2003		
David Newman, 66, screenwriter
AWARD-WINNER PENNED `BONNIE AND CLYDE,' `SUPERMAN' AND STAGE MUSICAL
`THE LIFE'

NEW YORK (AP) - David Newman, an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter
whose films included ``Bonnie and Clyde'' and the ``Superman'' movies,
has died. He was 66.

Mr. Newman died at Lenox Hill Hospital late Thursday, five days after
suffering a massive stroke, family friend Bobby Zarem said.

Mr. Newman, who began his career as an editor at Esquire magazine,
penned screenplays for more than a dozen films, sometimes with his
wife, Leslie Newman, other times with Robert Benton, director of
``Kramer vs. Kramer'' and ``Places in the Heart.''

Benton and Mr. Newman first came to prominence when they wrote the
screenplay for ``Bonnie and Clyde,'' the 1967 film starring Warren
Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

``David was a good friend of mine, and David was a great writer, so I
spun these stories about the glories of being a screenwriter and we
wrote,'' Benton recalled in a 1991 Associated Press interview. He said
they were inspired by a footnote in a book that mentioned Bonnie Parker
and Clyde Barrow, the bank robbers shot to death in a police ambush in
1934.

The movie, directed by Arthur Penn, was at first denounced by critics
for glamorizing the notorious killers, but it won audiences over and
was eventually nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including best
screenplay.

``It's like an umpire in a baseball game who changes his mind. Safe,
out! No critic had ever done that before. So that was huge,'' Mr.
Newman said in 1998.

Mr. Newman, his wife and others worked on the screenplays for
``Superman,'' the 1978 hit, and its sequels.

Mr. Newman also wrote for the stage, including the book for the
Tony-nominated musical ``The Life.''

Mr. Newman won numerous awards, including the New York Film Critics
Award, the National Society of Film Critics Award and three Writers
Guild of America Awards.

He is survived by his wife and two children.