Ralph Bakshi

He is currently married to Liz who he wed in 1968.

He was born on 29 October 1938, in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine (now Israel) to Russian Jew parents. His family immigrated to New York City to escape World War II in 1939.

In 1947 his family moved to a predominantly black neighbourhood in Washington D.C., so he made numerous black friends and felt one with them.

He loved to read comics as a child and even foraged in trash bins to find them. He laid his hands on a copy of Gene Byrnes' ‘Complete Guide to Cartooning’ when he was 15 and began cartooning himself.

He attended the Thomas Jefferson High School where he proved to be a mischief maker. So the principal had him transferred to Manhattan's School of Industrial Art from where he graduated with an award in cartooning in 1956.

He was employed by Terrytoons Animation Studio in New Rochelle as a cel polisher. His first job was a low paying and boring one, yet he worked on sincerely. Impressed by his work, his employers promoted him to cel painting and then to animation.

He became the director of the studio at the age of 25. His first assignment was the series ‘Sad Cat’, but he was not happy with his job. He felt that he did not get the creative freedom he craved for as a director.

He joined Paramount Cartoon Studios in 1967 as the Producer and Director. Here he worked with Steve Krantz to create episodes of the ‘Spider-Man’ TV series and several short films.

By the 1970s he was raring to produce films of his own as he wanted to freely express his creativity, unrestrained by the limitations of his studio jobs. Krantz suggested that he make an animated version of Robert Crumb's ‘Fritz the Cat’ comic book, and thus he began working on it.

The film was released in 1972 and immediately became very successful because of its explicit sexual content. An adult animated comedy film, it was radically different from the other animated films of that time.

His debut feature film, ‘Fritz the Cat’ became the first animated feature film to receive an X rating in the United States. The movie shocked the conservative audiences but also entertained them at the same time with its graphic content and profanity. It grossed over $90 million worldwide to become the most successful independent animated feature of all time.