Paul Heyman
Paul Heyman was born on September 11, 1965, in Westchester County, New York, the son of Sulamita ("née" Szarf; 1928–2009) and Richard S. Heyman (1926–2013), a prominent personal injury attorney and World War II veteran. He is of Jewish descent; his mother was a Holocaust survivor who suffered through experiences in Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, and the Łódź Ghetto. By age 11, he was running a mail order business selling celebrity and sports memorabilia from his home. While still a teenager, he fast-talked his way backstage at a World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) event at Madison Square Garden as a photojournalist. He was paid by the company for several of his photographs. He graduated from Edgemont High School. He attended SUNY Purchase and worked on-air as an opinionated, controversial host at SUNY's radio station and the WARY-FM New York radio station for Westchester Community College; in 1985, at the age of 19, he became a photographer, then a producer and promoter for the New York City nightclub Studio 54.
Patrick Hayman
Born in London in 1915, Hayman moved to in New Zealand in 1936 aged nineteen. Hayman acknowledged he was inspired to paint by R.N. (Bob) Field (1899–1987) teacher at the school of art in Dunedin, New Zealand, where Hayman went to live as a young man. He mingled there in the 1930s with a group of young artists who developed New Zealand's first indigenous Modernism. Notable in that group was Colin McCahon (1919–1987) who stayed in contact with Hayman and like him used texts as integral to his imagery.