Everything about Garry Trudeau totally explained
Garretson Beekman Trudeau (born
July 21,
1948) is an
American cartoonist, best known for the
Doonesbury comic strip.
Background and education
Trudeau was born in
New York City, the son of Jean Douglas (
née Moore) and Francis Berger Trudeau. He 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.
Raised in Saranac Lake, Garry Trudeau attended
St. Paul's School. He enrolled in
Yale University in 1967 and later became a member of
Scroll and Key. Garry was confident that his major would end up being theatre, but he discovered a greater interest in
art design. A drawing by Trudeau of famous Yale quarterback
Brian Dowling for the
Yale Daily News led to the creation of a comic strip for the paper,
Bull Tales, the progenitor of
Doonesbury. Garry continued his studies with postgraduate work at the
Yale School of Art, earning his M.F.A. in graphic design in 1973.
Creative works
In 1970, Garry's creation of
Doonesbury was syndicated by the newly formed
Universal Press Syndicate. Today
Doonesbury is
syndicated to almost 1,400 newspapers worldwide and is accessible online in association with
Slate Magazine 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's traditionally awarded to editorial-page cartoonists. He was also a Pulitzer finalist in
1990. He was 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.
The Doonesbury Special eventually won the
Cannes Film Festival Jury Special Prize in
1978. Other awards include the
National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Comic Strip Award in 1994, and the
Reuben Award in 1995.
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."
In addition to his work on Doonesbury, Trudeau has teamed up with
Elizabeth Swados and written plays (such as
Rap Master Ronnie and ). In
1988, Trudeau joined forces with director
Robert Altman for the
HBO miniseries Tanner '88 and the
Sundance Channel miniseries sequel
Tanner on Tanner in 2004. In 1996, Newsweek and the Washington Post speculated that Trudeau penned the novel
Primary Colors, which was later revealed to have been written by
Joe Klein.
Private life
He married the journalist
Jane Pauley in 1980 and has three children-- Ross, Rachel, and Thomas-- and lives in New York City. He is distantly related to the late former
Canadian prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau (via common ancestor
Étienne 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." He has also appeared on the
Charlie Rose television program
Criticisms & controversies
In
August 2001, Trudeau and
The Guardian both fell for a report by the fictional "Lovenstein Institute" that stated that President George W. Bush had the lowest
IQ (91) of any president in the past 50 years, and that former president
Bill Clinton had exactly twice the IQ of Bush.
The Guardian published an article while Trudeau published a
comic strip based on the given information. Both later realized they'd fallen for the hoax, and both made public retractions.
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 May 2008, no one has collected on the offer.
Bibliography
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
Finding Your Religion: When the Faith You Grew Up With Has Lost Its Meaning, by Scotty McLennan. Trudeau wrote the introduction and drew the cover cartoon.
Doonesbury.com's The Sandbox: Dispatches from Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, Andrews McMeel Publishing (October 1, 2007), ISBN 0740769456 ISBN-13 978-0740769450. Blogs by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.Further Information
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