Paul Wing
Born
Paul Reuben Wing

(1892-08-14)August 14, 1892
New York, USA
DiedMay 29, 1957(1957-05-29) (aged 64)
Portsmouth, Virginia, USA
OccupationAssistant director
Years active1927–1935
Spouse
Martha Gillis Thraves
​
​
(m. 1912)​
ChildrenTwo daughters, Pat and Toby Wing

Paul Wing (August 14, 1892 – May 29, 1957) was an assistant director at Paramount Pictures.[1] He won the 1935 Best Assistant Director Academy Award for The Lives of a Bengal Lancer along with Clem Beauchamp.[2] Wing was the assistant director on only two films owing to his service in the United States Army. During his service, Wing was in a prisoner camp[3] that was portrayed in the film The Great Raid (2005).

Career

Early in his adult life, Wing worked as a reporter on the Chicago Tribune, after which he began working on radio. His responsibilities included writing scripts for Fred Allen and Phil Baker.[4] In the early 1930s, he became an announcer and had his own 15-minute program, Paul Wing the Story Man, on NBC radio.[5] By 1936, the program was available in syndication by NBC's Thesaurus transcription service.[6] Wing was also NBC's director of children's programs.[7] As "NBC's spelling master" he also had the Spelling Bee program, which began on NBC-Red in 1937.[8]

In the mid-1940s, Wing made children's recordings for RCA Victor.[4] A 1949 recording of the story The Little Engine That Could narrated by Wing was inducted to the National Recording Registry in 2009.[9]

Wing was captured by the Japanese in the Philippines in 1942. He survived the Bataan Death March and was later rescued in the Raid at Cabanatuan by U.S. Army Rangers and Filipino guerillas, a story told in The Great Raid (2005). Paul Wing died in May 1957, in a veteran's hospital in Portsmith, VA, following a coronary.[10]

Filmography

References

  1. ^ Harty, John P. Jr. (2016). The Cinematic Challenge: Filming Colonial America: Volume 1: The Golden Age, 1930-1950. Hillcrest Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-63505-146-9.
  2. ^ "The 8th Academy Awards – 1936". Retrieved 30 April 2017.
  3. ^ Annals of the Wing Family of America Incorporated. Wing Family of America, Incorporated. 1954.
  4. ^ a b Archer, Thomas (December 13, 1947). "Paul Wing's magic". The Gazette. Canada, Montreal. p. 22. Retrieved March 1, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ "Network accounts" (PDF). Broadcasting. March 15, 1933. p. 22. Retrieved March 1, 2020.
  6. ^ "Transcriptions" (PDF). Broadcasting. April 1, 1936. p. 49. Retrieved March 2, 2020.
  7. ^ "Personal Notes" (PDF). Broadcasting. August 15, 1937. p. 33. Retrieved March 2, 2020.
  8. ^ "Paul Wing Returns" (PDF). Broadcasting. September 15, 1938. p. 68. Retrieved March 2, 2020.
  9. ^ http://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/little%20engine%20that%20could.pdf[bare URL PDF]
  10. ^ Annals of the Wing Family of America Incorporated. Wing Family of America, Incorporated. 1954.
  11. ^ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer : With Christmas Greetings From Montgomery Ward|Library of Congress

External links

Authority control databases
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