EVIL WILHELM REMEMBERS PAT NEWMAN


-OK, gather round kiddies and Uncle Evil will tell you all about the time that Pat Newman herself was held captive in my house and forced to sculpt my ugly mug before she would be released!

I never "kind of" get into anything. If I buy a toaster, I spend sleepless nights studying the history of toasters, and their effect on mankind. It's a terrible obsessive/compulsive condition that prevents me from ever being at peace. In JUNGIAN terms, I'm an "Extroverted Sensate" that mythologizes inanimate objects....... like Masks!

That being said, back in the 1980s, the stars had finally aligned into a position that was allowing me to fulfill a childhood dream of owning the Don Post "Calendar Masks". Through the generous participation of Don Post Jr. and Dante Renta (the two key figures), I was learning everything that I needed to know about the history of Don Post Studios (this was before Verne Langdon had been removed from his tomb).
The name Pat Newman was associated with most of the sculptures that had left deep impressions in my soul. Her name was never used in vain! One day in the late 80s I was talking to Don Post about his current line, and he mentioned that he had enlisted the talents of none other than PN to sculpt a Lugosi mask. "WHAT ... ARE YOU SERIOUS?" I asked....."how does it look?" Don came back with his best "Don Post" and said "uncanny". I couldn't take it! I had to see this sculpture and I made arrangements to view it a few days later. When I saw it I thought that it was very good, but not "uncanny". Don told me that it looked TOO much like Bela, so he had Pat make some changes that would give it a more generic look. "NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Oh well, it still looked very cool and was released as MOONFAN. The most important thing was that I was going to meet the "Princess Of Plastelina" PAT NEWMAN!

You know those days when you have to remind yourself that life just couldn't get much better? That's what I'm talkin about. I had been given the rules (kinda like that long walk Clarice takes right before she meets Hanibal) and was told that Pat was VERY sensitive (what an understatement!). When I told her that she had fans she said "Oh no...I don't want fans. They follow you and won't leave you alone and come to your house and......" At some point, I will sit down with someone like Dante and tell the whole story, but I better get on to the mask.

I asked Don if he would mind if I asked Pat to sculpt a mask of me. He said that she was still doing some work for him, but that when she finished, it would be fine. OK, it sounds vain, but the idea of the same hands that made the masks in my cabinet doing a sculpture of me was TOO good to resist. Pat didn't have a phone (or wouldn't admit it), so I had to send letters. After many months of begging, she called from a pay phone. For every reason that she came up with as to why she couldn't do it, I would come back with two reasons why she could! I was not going to take NO for an answer.

I will give the short version:

She agreed to do it
She worked in my house for weeks
She smoked and drank coffee incessantly
She left for two weeks once just because Rob Tharp said "Hi"
Upon completion, she told me that she was sick, and....... it was very sad

I will always consider those days to have been a gift.

To top it off, the mask was molded at Don Post Studios and given a DP mark, painted by Rob Tharp, and haired with my own pony tail by Dante Renta! (I shaved my head for the mask)

I'm sorry that I don't have better photos for you. This mask was done in 1991, and Monster Mayhem is the first place that I have ever shown the "Pat Newman EVIL WILHELM Mask!
-EW