Gene Deitch

Eugene Merril Deitch ( born August 8, 1924 in Chicago) is an American illustrator, animator and film director.

Life

Between 1945 and 1951, Gene Deitch worked for the jazz magazine The Record Changer, first as a graphic designer, then as an art director. The New York based producer William L. Snyder convinced Deitch 1959 of going to Prague to conduct aesthetico the animation studio founded by Snyder. The formula for success of Snyder, who was a skilled businessman, was the production of labor-intensive Anima -tion films for the Western market at low rates in the Eastern Bloc. The animation studio of Deitch is located near the Barrandov studios in Prague. Since 1959, Deitch was living in Prague, where in 1960 he married his wife Zdenka. In his memoirs published in 1997, For the Love of Prague Deitch thematized his experience as " the only free American in Prague during 30 years of communism ." Her sons Simon and Kim Deitch are also a cartoonist.

Even during the Cold War produced Deitch from there cartoons for US-based companies such as UPA / Columbia Pictures, Terrytoons/20th Century Fox (Tom Terrific ), MGM (Tom and Jerry ) and Paramount Pictures ( Nudnik ). Together with producer William L. Snyder, he directed the Comics television series Krazy Kat. Produced by Snyder Short Munro, in which led Deitch Director, received the 1961 Academy Award in the category " Best Animated Short Film "; Self Defense ... for Cowards 1963 was nominated in the same category for an Oscar.

Be 1968 Deitch the leading animation director for Weston Woods / Scholastic, a Connecticut-based production company that mainly adapted children's books. 1996 showed the MoMA in New York, a retrospective of eight short films by Deitch for Rembrandt Films Film Company. In 2003 he received the Annie Award from the organization ASIFA - Hollywood for his life's work.