Author Tony Castro writes passionately but critically about Bellows and how the crusty, charismatic editor sought to channel the magic of Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin and the New Journalism into the young, hungry columnists and writers helping him take on the bigger, richer Los Angeles Times.
Castro, whose political manifesto Chicano Power had fueled the Latino civil rights movement in America, chronicled Cesar Chavez and California’s ambitious new Mexican American power brokers he christened The Golden Palominos, a moniker they soon adopted for themselves.
At the Herald Examiner Castro befriended the most important writer of his age, Tom Wolfe, when he wrote a column reworking the Nicene Creed into the New Journalism Creed centered around Wolfe and his works. Wolfe loved it.
Castro’s columns on then Governor Jerry Brown’s friendship with Hollywood restaurateurs Lucy and Frank Casado unveil an unusual, caring power couple who helped feed and nurture many of the ‘California sound’ rock stars before they were famous: the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne among others.
That time is also Texas-born Castro’s coming of age. After a traumatic divorce and a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, returning home is not an option — and he accepts Bellows offer to relocate to LA without even meeting him.
He agreed to do it for six months. He stayed the rest of his life.