Rebecca Newman, 89; Writer, Artist

Rebecca (Becky) Newman, author, artist and 20-year resident of Pacific Palisades, passed away on March 21. She was 89. Newman led a long and creative life. Known mostly for her writing, she crafted novels, short stories, scripts, screenplays and children’s stories. Among her best-known novels are ‘The Belly Dancer in the Barrel of Oil’ and ‘Dr. Mengele Dies,’ in which the German SS officer and physician in the concentration camps escapes and two Israeli Mossad agents capture him in Paraguay and bring him to trial. In the midst of this covert operation, love blooms between the two agents. Newman taught creative writing for over 20 years at UCLA Extension and English at various colleges. In 2008, she took up painting, explaining that ‘my imagination runs wild,’ which accounted for the range of subjects she explored on canvas. Her work ran from Chagal-esque lovers and pastorals to Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ and animals, and was exhibited last summer at the Palisades Branch Library community room. She also enjoyed her membership in the Palisades Art Association. Born August 2, 1920, and raised in New York City, Newman lived most of her life in the Los Angeles area.’Due to her astonishing beauty, the young Rebecca Horn also worked as a model for painters. She later remarked that a painting of her (as a model) by painter Raphael Soyer hung’in the Brooklyn Museum.   In World War II, Rebecca Horn served as a WAC in the Signal Corps. After the war, true to her humanist-activist leanings, she was active in the American Veterans Committee, Los Angeles chapter, trying to insure decent housing for veterans returning from the war. In that organization she met another veteran activist, Everett Spector, who became her first husband and the father of all her children. They shared a 15-year marriage.   Later, Rebecca was married for 41 years to the late Hollywood film and sound editor John (Hans) Newman, who died in 2005.   She is survived by her three sons, Phillip, Michael and Lincoln, and grandchildren Adam, David, Elijah, Aviva and Maya.   A funeral service was held on March 23 at Eden Memorial Park in Mission Hills, followed a day later by a memorial get-together at the Tahitian Terrace in Pacific Palisades, where she lived for many years.