Garry Trudeau
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Garretson Beekman Trudeau (born July 21, 1948, in New York City) is an American cartoonist, best known for the Doonesbury comic strip.
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[edit] Background and education
Trudeau is the great-grandson of Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau, who created facilities for the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis at Saranac Lake, New York State. Edward was succeeded by his son Francis and grandson Francis Jr. The latter founded the Trudeau Institute at Saranac Lake, with which his son Garry retains a connection.[1]
Raised in Saranac Lake, Garry Trudeau attended St. Paul's School and then Yale University in the late 1960s, where he developed his most famous creation, the daily comic strip Doonesbury, and was a member of Scroll and Key. He also attended the Yale School of Art, earning his M.F.A. in graphic design in 1973.
[edit] Creative works
In 1970, Garry syndicated Doonesbury in the newly formed Universal Press Syndicate. Today Doonesbury is syndicated to almost 1,400 newspapers worldwide and is accessible online in association with Slate at doonesbury.com.
In 1975, he became the first comic strip artist to win a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. The award was controversial at the time, since it is traditionally awarded to editorial-page cartoonists. He was also nominated for an Oscar in 1977 in the category of Animated Short Film, for The Doonesbury Special, in collaboration with John Hubley and Faith Hubley. Other awards include the National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Comic Strip Award in 1994, and the Reuben Award in 1995.
In addition to his work on Doonesbury, Trudeau has written plays (such as Rap Master Ronnie and Doonesbury: A Musical Comedy) and the 1988 HBO miniseries Tanner '88, directed by Robert Altman and the miniseries sequel Tanner on Tanner in 2004.
He was made a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1993. Wiley Miller, fellow comic-strip artist responsible for Non Sequitur, called Trudeau "far and away the most influential editorial cartoonist in the last 25 years."
[edit] Private life
He married the journalist Jane Pauley in 1980 and has three kids Ross, Rickie, and Tom, and lives on Central Park West in New York City. He is distantly related to the late former Canadian prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau (via common ancestor Etienne Trudeau).
Trudeau maintains a low personal profile. A rare and early appearance on television was as a guest on To Tell the Truth in 1971, where all but one of the panelists failed to guess his identity.
Trudeau granted an interview with Rolling Stone in 2004 in which he discussed his time at Yale University, which he attended two years behind George W. Bush. In 2006, The Washington Post printed an article that writer Gene Weingarten called the "first extensive profile of him (Trudeau) in the 36 years since he began the comic strip." [2] He has also appeared on the Charlie Rose television program, and at signings for his Doonesbury book about B.D.'s struggle with injuries received during the second Gulf War.
[edit] Criticisms & controversies
In August 2001, Trudeau and The Guardian both fell for a false Lovenstein Institute IQ Report that stated that President George W. Bush had the lowest IQ (91) of any president in the past 50 years. The Guardian published an article while Trudeau published a comic strip based on the given information. Also, the report stated that former president Bill Clinton had exactly twice the IQ of Bush. Both later realized they had fallen for the hoax, and both made public retractions.[3][4]
In 2004, Trudeau made a widely-circulated offer of a $10,000 reward (in the form of a gift to the USO in the winner's name) for proof that George W. Bush fulfilled his military duties in the 1970s. (See George W. Bush military service controversy for more complete coverage). As of February 2007, no one has collected on the offer.
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Non-Doonesbury publications
- Hitler Moves East: A Graphic Chronicle, 1941-43 (with David Levinthal), Sheed, Andrews and McMeel, 1977. Library of Congress 76-52888. The cover shows two Wehrmacht motorcyclists. The book relates the story of Nazi Germany's Army Group Centre on the Eastern Front through archival photos and new photography of model soldiers. ISBN 0-8362-0708-4
