Joseph P. Boon, a newspaper editor and patron of the arts, died in Philadelphia on August 8, 2013.
He was 69 years old.
Born in Salem, he graduated from Woodstown High School in 1961 and received a Bachelor of
Arts degree in English from Rider College in 1965. In 1967 he received a Master of Arts degree
in English and American Literature from West Virginia University, where he was a graduate
assistant and an adjunct in English composition.
During the 1970's Mr. Boon was the Entertainment Editor as well as the theatre and film critic
of the Bucks County (PA) Courier-Times. He met and often interviewed numerous celebrities,
including: Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Tennessee Williams, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland,
George Balanchine, Henry Mancinni, John Wayne, Woody Allen, Robert Mitchum, Jerry Orbach,
Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Ernest Borgnine, James Whitmore, Lillian Gish, Imogene Coca, Joan
Fontaine, Eva Marie Saint, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Margaret Hamilton, Maureen Stapleton, Carol
Channing, Mitzi Gaynor, Lynn Redgrave, Cybill Shepherd, and Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr.,
the second man on the Moon.
Mr. Boon was a Critic Fellow at the National Critics Institute of the Eugene O'Neill Memorial
Theatre Center, under a grant funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities
and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
He traveled throughout Western Europe, and to Egypt and the former Soviet Union.
After his newspaper career, Mr. Boon was engaged in printing and publishing, including CBS
Inc., in New York City and Philadelphia. He was a long-time subscriber to concerts by the
Philadelphia Orchestra.
He is survived by his parents Joseph C. and Evelyn Boon, of Lower Alloways Creek Township. Interment in East View Cemetery, Salem, will be private.