Michael Paine - Personal Life

Personal Life

In 1957, he married Ruth Avery Hyde in Pennsylvania. They had two children: Lynn (b. 1959) and Christopher (b. 1961). In 1959, they relocated to Irving, Texas when Paine began work at a Bell Helicopter facility in Fort Worth.

In February 1963, Paine's wife was introduced to Marina Oswald and her husband, Lee Harvey Oswald by a family friend from the singing group, Everett Glover, at a party Paine didn't attend because of a cold. Paine met the Oswalds for the first time in April when his wife invited them over for dinner. In late September 1963, when Paine and his wife were separated, and he had his own apartment in Grand Prairie, Texas, and would visit the family home on weekends, Marina and her daughter went to live with Paine's wife. Lee Harvey Oswald rented a room in Dallas but stored some of his possessions in Paine’s garage, including a supposed rifle wrapped in a blanket which Paine thought to be camping equipment. Paine's wife helped Oswald get a job at the Texas School Book Depository. Paine's testimony would later become a central feature of the Warren Commission's investigation of the assassination, particularly in regard to the presence of the purported assassination rifle in the garage of his family home.

Paine and his wife were portrayed in Oliver Stone's JFK as characters called "Bill and Janet Williams," presumably to avoid legal action.

He is a member of the American Civil Liberties Union.