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Doonesbury
Background:
American cartoonist and writer Garry Trudeau, sometimes credited as G.B. Trudeau, is famous as the creator, writer and artist of the comic strip “Doonesbury,” which became the first daily comic to win a Pulitzer Prize Award in 1975. For his work on The Doonesbury Special (1977), he jointly received a Jury Prize from the 1978 Cannes Film Festival and an Oscar nomination.
Trudeau made an extensively-circulated offer of a $10,000 reward for evidence that George W. Bush fulfilled his duties in military in the 1970s. No body has yet proven that the president did fulfill his military duties. Trudeau and Bush both attended Yale University in the late 1960s and served on the same dormitory social committee together.
“I think he is smart but willfully ignorant, and he uses his ignorance for strategic advantage, which is appalling. He substitutes belief for thought. It protects you from self-doubt.” Garry Trudeau’s opinion of President George W. Bush
Father of 3
Childhood and Family:
Garretson Beekman Trudeau, who would later be popular as Garry Trudeau, was born on July 21, 1948, in New York, New York. He is the great-grandson of Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau, who built facilities for the cure of pulmonary tuberculosis at Saranac Lake, New York State. Edward was succeeded by his son Francis and grandson Francis Jr. The latter established the Trudeau Institute at Saranac Lake, with which his son Garry remains a bond. Garry grew up in Saranac Lake. After graduating from St. Paul’s School, he enrolled in Yale University in the late 1960s. He received his M.F.A degree from the Yale School of Art in 1973.
In 1980, Garry tied the knot with Jane Pauley, a journalist. They have three children, twins Ross and Richel (born 1983), and Thomas (born 1986). Garry and his family currently reside in Central Park West in New York City. Garry’s brother, Michelle Trudeau, is a journalist.
Tanner ’88
Career:
“Having a successful daily comic strip is the closest thing to tenure that popular culture offers. But it doesn’t seem to have freed up creativity any more than tenure for professors has. It’s been an open invitation for complacency.” Garry Trudeau
Son of the founder of Saranac Lake’s Trudeau Institute, cartoonist Garry Trudeau developed his most well-known creation, the every day comic strip “Doonesbury,” while at Yale University, and by 1970, “Doonesbury” had been syndicated by the newly formed Universal Press Syndicate. Nowadays, it has been syndicated to nearly 1,400 newspapers worldwide.
In 1975, Trudeau made a history for becoming the first comic strip artist to win a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. The prize was controversial at the time, because it was traditionally given only to “single panel” editorial-page cartoonists. Three years later, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film and a Jury Prize in the category of Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival, for The Doonesbury Special (1977), sharing with John Hubley and Faith Hubley. Later, he also picked up a 1994 National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Comic Strip and a 1995 Reuben.
Aside from his work on Doonesbury, Trudeau has been responsible for the writing of such plays as “Doonesbury: A Broadway Musical” and “Rap Master Ronnie: A Report Card.” He wrote and produced the 1988 miniseries “Tanner ’88,” starring Michael Murphy, Pamela Reed and Daniel Jenkins and directed by Robert Altman. He remained with the same capacity when the show spawned a sequel in 2004, Tanner on Tanner. Trudeau also provided the voice of Louis in a 1994 episode of the long-running sitcom “Frasier” (1993-2004).
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