Schoenstein, Ralph 1933-2006
(Ralph Samuel Schoenstein)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born May 29, 1933, in New York, NY; died of complications from heart surgery, August 24, 2006, in Philadelphia, PA. Humorist, broadcaster, and author. Schoenstein was a humor columnist for various newspapers and magazines, ghost writer for celebrities, and regular commentator on National Public Radio (NPR). The son of a Pulitzer-winning editor, he wrote about his father in Citizen Paul: A Story of Father & Son (1978) and Superman and Son (1995). Schoenstein served in the U.S. Army before graduating from Columbia University with a B.A. in 1953. He briefly worked as a writer-producer for the Du-Mont Television Network in New York City, then as a staff member of American Weekly in the late 1950s. From 1959 to 1961, he was a columnist for Newhouse Newspapers in Long Island City, before writing for the New York Journal-American. In many of his early books, like The Block (1960), he wrote of his childhood, but he later turned to spoofing American politics and culture. Schoenstein started writing undercover pieces for newspapers and television in 1968, and was once briefly imprisoned for impersonating an officer in an attempt to cover the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. My Year in the White House Doghouse (1969) also got him in trouble with the Johnson administration, which attempted to censor the book. In the early 1970s, Schoenstein contributed to the humor magazine National Lampoon, and a character in the cult film Animal House was named after him. Continuing to publish books on a regular basis, Schoenstein released such humorous works as Wasted on the Young (1974), The I-Hate-Preppies Handbook: A Guide for the Rest of Us (1981), Alma Maters: How to Survive College Life (1983), and Stop the Snoring! (1997). He was also the ghost writer of best-selling celebrity books, including four titles under Bill Cosby's name, Fatherhood (1987) and Time Flies (1988), Joan Rivers's Bouncing Back: I've Survived Everything … and I Mean Everything … and You Can Too! (1997), and Ed McMahon's Here's Johnny! (2005). Schoenstein was a regular radio commentator for NPR since the mid-1990s. His last book was Toilet Trained for Yale: Adventures in 21st-Century Parenting (2002).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Schoenstein, Ralph, The Block, Random House (New York, NY), 1960.

Schoenstein, Ralph, Yes, My Darling Daughters: Adventures in Fathering, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1976.

Schoenstein, Ralph, Citizen Paul: A Story of Father & Son, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1978.

Schoenstein, Ralph, Diamonds for Lori and Me: A Father, Daughter, and Baseball, Beech Tree Books (New York, NY), 1988.

Schoenstein, Ralph, Superman and Son, Rutgers University Press (New Brunswick, NJ), 1995.

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, August 30, 2006, section 1, p. 13.

Los Angeles Times, August 30, 2006, p. B10.

New York Times, August 28, 2006, p. D9.

Washington Post, September 2, 2006, p. B7.