Paul Kinsey | |
---|---|
Portrayed by | Michael Gladis |
First appearance | Smoke Gets in Your Eyes |
Final appearance | Christmas Waltz |
Details | |
Gender | Male |
Employer | Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency |
Occupation | Copywriter |
Relations | |
Romantic Partners | Joan Holloway (ex-lover) Sheila White (ex-girlfriend) |
Biography
Paul Kinsey was a copywriter at Sterling Cooper advertising agency. ("Smoke Gets in Your Eyes")
He was initially featured as part of Pete's "entourage" in the office, often spending more time drinking, flirting, and gossiping as opposed to actually working. Paul was romantically involved with Joan in the past and also dated a black woman who dumped him while they were registering black voters in Mississippi.
He lived in a beatnik neighborhood in New Jersey and espouses more Bohemian ideas than his fellow young copywriters. He is originally from New Jersey and attended Princeton on a scholarship, two facts he is eager to hide. A fan of science fiction and "The Twilight Zone", he has a notably Camelot-era fascination with space. In season 2 he grows an Orson Welles beard.
When Paul first met Peggy Olson, he took a liking to her and encouraged her to pursue copy writing, stating that "There are women copywriters." Peggy rejected Paul's advances on her, and Paul quickly became jealous and more competitive with her when it was clear that she had more skill as a copywriter than a secretary.
As Peggy continued to grow as a copywriter, she began to overshadow Paul's work and ideas. Although Paul survived the wave of firings following the merger of Sterling Cooper and Puttnam, Powell, and Lowe, his influence in the creative department began to wane and he was rarely invited to important meetings with clients.
At the end of Season 3, Don Draper did not consider him to join the new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce agency. On the Monday morning following the secret exodus, Paul discovered Peggy's office had been abandoned and realized that Don had chosen her instead of him.
Paul did not appear again until late in Season 5, where he met Harry at a coffee shop. Paul had apparently dropped out of the advertising business after jumping around several agencies and fallen on hard times. He reluctantly became a Hare Krishna, but he continued to write on the side and presented Harry with a script for a Star Trek episode. Harry encouraged him to take his script out to Hollywood and start a new life, and gave him a plane ticket and 500 dollars. Paul gave him a hug, saying that Harry was the only person who ever did anything for him. ("Christmas Waltz")