Lee Falk

Lee Falk
Birth name	Leon Harrison Gross
Born	April 28, 1911 St. Louis
Died	March 13, 1999 New York City
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Writer
Notable works	The Phantom, Mandrake the Magician
Awards	Adamson Award, Silver T-Square Award

Lee Falk From Wikipedia, Revised and Rewritten by Diane M. Falk Lee Falk

Birth name Leon Harrison Gross Born April 28, 1911 St. Louis, Missouri

Died March 13, 1999 New York City

Nationality American Area(s) Writer and Theater Director/Producer Notable works The Phantom, Mandrake the Magician

Awards • The Yellow Kid Award (1971) • The Roman Lifetime Achievement Award • The Adamson Award for best foreign comics creator (Sweden, 1977) • Silver T-Square Award • The Golden Adamson (Sweden, 1986) • Silver T-Square Award (Reuben Award, 1986) • In May 1994, his birthplace St. Louis honored him with Lee Falk Day. • Leon Harrison Gross, more known by the alias of Lee Falk, (April 28, 1911 - March 13, 1999) was an American writer, best known as the creator of the popular comic strip superheroes The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician, who at the height of their popularity secured him over a hundred million readers every day.These were also the first costumed superheroes to appear in the ‘comics’). He was also a playwright and theatrical director/producer, leading him to direct actors such as Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Paul Newman, Chico Marx, and Ethel Waters.(See a more extensive list under ‘Theater’). Falk also contributed to a series of novels about the Phantom. Leon was born in St. Louis, where he spent his childhood and youth. His mother was Eleanor Alina (a name he would later on, in some form, use in both Mandrake and Phantom stories), and his father was Benjamin Gross. Both of his parents were Jewish. Benjamin Gross died when Leon was a child, and Eleanor remarried to Albert Falk Epstein, who became Leon's father figure in life. Leon changed his surname after leaving college. He took the middle name of his stepfather (Albert Falk Epstein)"Falk", but "Lee" had been his nickname since childhood. His younger half-brother, Leslie, also took the name "Falk". When he began his comics writing career, his official biography claimed that he was an experienced world traveler who had studied with Eastern mystics, etc. In fact, he had simply made it up in order to seem more like the right kind of person to be writing about globe-trotting heroes like Mandrake and The Phantom; the trip to New York to introduce Mandrake the Magician to King Features Syndicate was, at that time, the farthest he had been from home. In later life, however, he really became an experienced world traveler - at least partly, he said, to avoid the embarrassment of having his bluff inadvertently called by genuine travelers wanting to swap anecdotes. During World War II, Lee also worked as Chief of Propaganda for the new radio station KMOX in Illinois, where he became the leader of the radio foreign language division of the Office of War Information.(He also worked at the Headquarters office in Washington, DC with the person who would later become (Senator) Alan Cranston. At that time, Alan Cranston smuggled out of Germany an unedited version of Mein Kamph. Then, within a few months he and Lee Falk had this version translated and widely disseminated especially throughout America and the English-speaking world. As soon as the real message of Mein Kamph was known, UN Troops were sent immediately to free all the concentration camp victims wherever they were throughout Europe.(Adolf Hitler tried to sue them, but without results). • One of the great stories of popular culture is the following: During World War II, when Hitler was broadcasting his weekly radio shows throughout Europe, announcing that he had destroyed America and blown the USA off the map’, the American comic strip, The Phantom, continued to be published in the newspapers; therefore, assuring to all that ‘America was still there’! Traditionally, newspaper cartoons and comic books presenting noble adventures, with forces of good overcoming evil in various sequences of stories, are more currently referenced as the Graphic Novel or Sequential Art. While what we call comics or cartoons, one of the few phenomenons of American Popular Culture along with Jazz and the ‘mystery and adventure novel' ( first created by nineteenth-century writers, James Fennimore Cooper and Edgar Allan Poe) are actually extolled by the French as genuine and original culture—at a time when Americans thought they had no culture. In fact, with the explosion of ‘Pop Culture' in the 1960s , Ph.D. candidates were writing their dissertations at the Sorbonne in Paris, on the 'Jungle Wisdom' in “The Phantom” and about the features of science fiction with the elegant character 'Mandrake the Magician' — the creations and continuous work of the famous cartoonist and playwright and theater director, Lee Falk. Also, Festivals in Spoleto, Italy celebrated the creative accomplishments of especially the American cartoonists. Other good examples of noble adventure are the classic 'Prince Valiant', Will Eisner's 'The Spirit'; also, the gentle humor of Jerry Robinson's 'Flubs and Fluffs' and Charles Schulz's 'Peanuts', etc. Actually, the list is quite extensive and the good examples numerous for family-friendly Popular Culture. Lee Falk married three times, with Louise Kanaseriff, Constance Moorehead Lilienthal, and Elizabeth Moxley (interestingly, he married Elizabeth, a respected stage-director, not long before he decided to marry The Phantom and his longtime girlfriend Diana Palmer in The Phantom" strip). Elizabeth would sometimes help Lee with the scripts in his last years. She also finished his last Phantom stories after he died. Lee became the father of three children, Valerie (daughter of Louise Kanaseriff), and Diane and Conley (children of Constance Moorehead Lilienthal). As a father, he was supportive and inspiring to his children, always emphasizing traditional education. And, although his popular writing emphasized classic values, he did not encourage his own children to read cartoons. He loved to tell his stories, in advance of publication, especially to his children and family. Often, their response to a new Phantom or Mandrake story, would determine whether or not he would continue to use a specific plot or storyline. Lessons were offered with gentle hints of humor. He would say about courage (and The Phantom), ‘laugh in the face of “dan ger”; or, to encourage careful thought before actions, he would say, think—T-H-I-N-Q !! Lee Falk lived for more than forty years in New York, in an apartment with a panoramic view of the New York skyline and Central Park; and, during the summers, lived in a house on Cape Cod, with strong circles of friends in the arts and literature, such as Alan Lomax (with his own department at The Library of Congress for recording original music and dance of world cultures); Norman Mailer, Jack Kahn (of The New Yorker Magazine), Xavier Gonzales (the great Mexican silversmith), and his wife, Ethel Edwards, famous for her canvases, the series, ‘Moon Viewing Parties’, and many more..

He literally wrote his comic strips from 1934 to the last days of his life, when in hospital he tore off his oxygen mask to dictate his stories; Lee died from heart failure in 1999.  However, his two characters, Mandrake and, in particular, The Phantom, are still active and popular, both in comic books (the newest addition of the Phantom coming from Moonstone Books) and comic strips. New movie versions of both his creations are also on the schedule, with Mandrake set to premiere first of them in 2008.

Creating Mandrake and The Phantom

Cover of Falk's novel "The Story of the Phantom: The Ghost Who Walks". Drawn by George Wilson. Lee had a fascination for stage magicians from his youth. According his own reports, he sketched the first few Mandrake the Magician strips himself. When asked why the magician looked so much like himself, he replied, “Well, of course he did. I was alone in a room with a mirror when I drew him!” The Phantom was inspired by Falk’s fascination for myths and legends, like the ones about El Cid, King Arthur, Nordic and Greek folklore, and popular fictional characters like Tarzan and Mowgli from The Jungle Book. Falk originally considered the idea of calling his character The Gray Ghost, but finally decided that he preferred The Phantom. Lee revealed in an interview that Robin Hood, who often wore tights in the stories about him, inspired the skin-tight costume of The Phantom, which is known to have influenced the entire superhero-industry. In the A&E Phantom biography, he also explained that Greek busts inspired the idea of The Phantom’s pupils not showing when he wore his mask. The Greek busts had no pupils, which Falk felt gave them an inhuman, interesting look. It is known that the look of The Phantom inspired the look of what has today become known as the "superhero". Lee thought that his comic strips would last a few weeks at best; however, he wrote them for more than six decades, until the last days of his life. Theatre Lee Falk’s greatest passion was the theatre. During a lifetime, he ran six theaters (in Boston, Cambridge, Marblehead and Framingham, Massachusetts, and in New York City and Nassau, in the Bahamas). and produced more than 300 plays and theater productions, directing more than 100 of them. He wrote 12 plays, two of them musicals; "Happy Dollar" and "Mandrake the Magician", based on his comic strip creation. After Lee's death, his widow Elizabeth directed a musical called "Mandrake the Magician and the Enchantress", which was written by Lee Falk, which was essentially the same as the previous "Mandrake the Magician" musical. Some of his plays starred well known actors like Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Celeste Holm, Constance Moorehead, Basil Rathbone, Chico Marx, Ethel Waters, Paul Newman, Ezio Pinza, James Mason, Jack Warner, Shelley Winters, Farley Granger, Eve Arden, Alexis Smith, Victor Jory, Cedric Hardwicke, Eva Marie Saint, Eva Gabor, Sarah Churchill, James Donn, Eddie Bracken, Ann Corio, Robert Wilcox, and Paul Robeson. The actors were all paid to perform, but many of them worked on a fraction of what they would normally earn with their movie work. Lee was proud to tell that Marlon Brando turned down an offer of $10 000 a week to act on Broadway, in favor of working for Lee in Boston in 1953 in the play "Arms and the Man". His Boston contract was less than $500 a week. Awards and recognition Lee won many awards for his dedication to the field of writing for comics and theatre. Here are a selected few of them: • The Yellow Kid Award (1971) • The Roman Lifetime Achievement Award • The Adamson Award for best foreign comics creator (Sweden, 1977) • The Golden Adamson (Sweden, 1986) • Silver T-Square Award (Reuben Award, 1986) • In May 1994, his birthplace St. Louis honored him with Lee Falk Day. On the premiere of The Phantom movie starring Billy Zane, Lee received a letter from President Bill Clinton, congratulating him with his achievements. Lee Falk has also been a candidate for the St. Louis Walk of Fame many times, but has so far not reached enough votes from the committee. Favorite Quotes "I may not agree with your beliefs, but I defend your right to express them." "That which is popular is great.(Usually the people know what is best). "I give 100% of my time to theatre, and what's left goes to comics..." (When asked about his age): "Never older than age thirty-nine.” "My only politics is up with democracy and down with dictatorships." "Each artist, out of his own interests and imagination, creates his own world in his strip – this is true of Peanuts, Beetle Bailey, Popeye, all good cartoons.. And, you accomplish this, not by imitating others - you may create your own good idea. To me, The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician are very real - much more than the people walking around whom I don't see very much. You have to believe in your own characters." In talking to and counseling his children and family about failures or disappointments, he would say, “You will have success and victory in spite of these difficulties.”. "The Phantom is a marvelous role model because he represents the force of ‘goodness’ that wins over evil. Evil never triumphs against The Phantom... He hates dictatorship and is in favor of democracy. He is also opposed to any violation of human rights." References • Lee Falk: Father of the Phantom by Joseph Szadkowski • (The World & I Magazine, November 1995, pages 136-ff). Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Falk" Categories: 1911 births | 1999 deaths | American comics writers | American novelists | American dramatists and playwrights | People from St. Louis, Missouri | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign alumni

Father of the Phantom Article #: 13769

Section: LIFE - PROFILE File Size: 2,807 words Issue Date: 11 / 1995 Start Page: 136 Author: Joseph Szadkowski Joseph Szadkowski, library director at the Washington Times, has been writing a syndicated column on comic books for the last two years.

As a founding father of the American comic strip industry, Lee Falk has been a step ahead of his time for more than six decades.

      Mandrake the Magician and The Phantom have spread Lee Falk's message of social tolerance, humanity, environmental awareness, and just plain "doing the right thing" to children and adults all over the world for more than sixty years. 
      If you consider the fiercely competitive American cartoon strip industry, where reader loyalty is dictated by character consistency, you know that Falk is to be admired. 
      When you realize that The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician are the longest-running strips still being created by their originator, you begin to think that he should even be deified. 
      From the very beginning, the Falk has been a maverick in the world of sequential storytelling. Born slightly more than a decade after the turn of the century, he has always been a step ahead of his time as an innovator and writer of American comics. 
      Although Falk is considered first and foremost a comic strip writer, he is in fact a master of sequential literature, the art of telling an in-depth, sometimes very detailed, continuing story in panel form. 
      Sequential literature requires a great story to keep it going. It also needs very tightly constructed plots with rich, descriptive dialogue. Not an easy art to master. 
      Falk began writing Mandrake the Magician while studying at the University of Illinois during the Depression. In 1934, at the age of nineteen, while traveling through New York with his father, he stopped by King Features and offered his strip to them. 
      To his surprise, they accepted it. Though Falk drew the early episodes, he felt he was more of a writer and that the strip would benefit from a dedicated artist. The first artist Falk worked with was Phil Davis, an older commercial illustrator from St. Louis who agreed to illustrate the strips while Falk, who was still in college, wrote them. From early on, Falk asked Ray Moore to be part of the team as inker for Davis' pencils. 
      Mandrake is a result of Falk's love for magicians and adventurers. As he explains, "I came up with the story of Mandrake the Magician because I loved magicians like Houdini and the great adventurers, like Marco Polo. I have always read a lot of adventure, science fiction, and detective novels. Mandrake is a conglomeration of the great magicians, adventurers, and detectives I have always enjoyed reading about. Mandrake is both a world traveler and an interplanetary traveler. He is a friend and a consultant to both the FBI and CIA." 
      The unusual name, Mandrake, is a result of Falk's lifelong interest in great literature. The name comes from a poem by the seventeenth-century poet John Donne: 
       Poem by John Donne:
         Go, and catch a falling star, 
      Get with child a mandrake root. 
      Mandrake root was a medieval panacea used to bring fertility to women, soothe aches, and cure disease. Despite his quaint appelation, the Magician is still as timely and fresh as he was when the strip began sixty-one years ago. 

1. Mandrake is a superhero who uses his wits and hypnotic power to battle and beat the villains. Able to instantly produce deep hypnosis, Mandrake might disarm a gun-toting thug by making him think he is holding a banana. Then, using sleight of hand and telepathy, he takes away the weapon.

      Falk used the Phantom and Mandrake to show kids that might is not always right and that a quick mind leads to success. He also engineered the first "politically correct" superhero pair-up by teaming Mandrake with Lothar, an African prince of the Federated Tribes who abdicated his throne to help Mandrake fight evil. 
      Nonwhite action heroes have been rare in comic and superhero history. Lothar is unique: He is a very real, intelligent partner—not just a sidekick. The prince also possesses a keen sense of humor and loyalty. 
      In choosing a black partner for Mandrake, Falk was not trying to make a statement, but he succeeded in writing an intriguing and exciting story. 
      Falk recollects that Lothar was widely viewed as an equal to Mandrake back in the 1930s, when such acceptance was not easily won. Describing their relationship, he explains that "Mandrake is an exceptional mental giant, who has abilities to trick others with his mind and abilities. Lothar is a physical giant, who is very gentle and also very intelligent. Originally, Lothar wore a turban, leopard skin, and shorts, but as he evolved into Mandrake's very best friend, he also changed. After World War II, Lothar became modernized, lost the pidgin English [he spoke], and his costume changed to a shirt, riding pants, and boots." 
      Lothar was originally Mandrake's bodyguard, but he quickly became more than an employee. According to Falk, the play between Lothar and Mandrake is key to the story. 
      He also comments that when Defenders of the Earth was developed for television in 1986, Lothar was not included on the promotional posters with Mandrake and Falk's other superheroes, The Phantom and Flash Gordon. Falk insisted that the error be corrected. Lothar has always been a favorite among his readers and has been a particularly good role model for his young black readers. 
      King Features syndicates Mandrake to more than two hundred newspapers in eight different languages and on six different continents. Now, as when it debuted, Mandrake is admired for its tightly constructed plots, excellent dialogue, drama, and suspense. 
      A jungle world 
       In 1936, Falk introduced his readers to a second action hero, The Phantom. This was the first costumed superhero to appear in the comics. 
       Because Falk grew up with the Tarzan stories and was intrigued with the richness of the African heritage, he decided to set The Phantom in Bangalla, a mythical jungle somewhere between Africa and India. He saw the wealth of detail and adventure he could put into his black-and-white strips using such a background. 
      The Phantom is heir to a legacy created by the first Phantom, who was the son of Christopher Columbus' cabin boy. Swearing to avenge his father's death at the hands of pirates, the first Phantom vowed on the skull of his father's murderer that he and his sons would devote their lives to "the destruction of piracy, cruelty, and injustice." 
      Over the years, there have been more than twenty Phantoms, with a son taking over when the father dies. Because each son has worn the same costume and never let his real identity be known, the natives of Bangalla have always thought the Phantom immortal. This intrigue has fueled the fantasy of Falk's story and allows each new Phantom to envelop himself within the mysterious past of those who walked before. 
      The Phantom lives in Skull Cave in the Bangalla jungle. He sleeps on the floor, collects berries for food, and has a rather rustic life-style. With his horse Hero and wolf pup Devil, the modern Phantom continues to fight inhumanity and injustice from this very primitive home. 
      Skull Cave does not contain many modern conveniences, but it does have a treasure room filled with jewels and presents grateful potentates have given to generations of Phantoms. Some of the Phantom's inherited prizes include Homer's lyre, Roland and King Arthur's swords, Cleopatra's asp, and the golden laurel crown worn by Caesar. 
      The Phantom's favorite piece is a spectacular diamond drinking mug. Its value has been increased by its history. The mug has been owned by such notables as Alexander the Great, Caesar, and Charlemagne, and each of them has etched his name into the priceless vessel. 
      The current Phantom spent part of his childhood in Mississippi with an aunt. Upon his father's death, he was called home to Bangalla and donned the costume and mask of The Phantom. At the same time, Diana, a school friend from Mississippi, started on the social circuit. Tiring of life as a debutante, she chose to become a nurse and joined the UN World Health Organization (WHO). 
      Diana's duties for WHO eventually led her to a mission in the jungles of Bangalla, where The Phantom proposed to her. "As an explorer, traveler, and nurse, she is a good match for The Phantom," says Falk. 
       "After The Phantom proposed, she asked him, 'What took you so long?' To which he responded that, she was a society woman who likes the opera, ballet, and that he could not see her living in Skull Cave!”
      Falk chuckles when describing the subsequent worldwide debate over whether a socialite and career woman could or should be The Phantom's bride. 
       "The debate actually made it onto the floor of the New Zealand House of Delegates," he says proudly. "One side felt Diana should give up her job and become a good wife for The Phantom. The other felt she should maintain her position and that The Phantom should figure it out." 
      The problem was resolved when the United Nations created a field office for Diana in Bangalla and The Phantom built her a beautiful arboreal palace on the edge of the jungle. 
      This drama took place in the late 1970s. Diana and The Phantom soon became parents of twins, a boy and a girl. For the last twenty years, they have continued to fight for "the destruction of piracy, cruelty, and injustice." 
      The continuing story line has allowed Falk to write about many societal ills. The Phantom has flourished because Falk has dealt with those timely issues of most interest to his readers. The strip has had story lines dealing with the environment, international conflicts, human rights, and the women's movement. 
      "While growing up, we always got to hear previews about The Phantom's exploits around the dinner table," recalls daughter Diane. "Dad always ended the story, just like in the strip, with a 'to be continued,' which always kept us in suspense waiting to hear the next tale. Sometimes, bits and pieces of our own lives and identity would appear. For example, Princess Valerie, who appeared in some Phantom episodes, is loosely based on Valerie, my sister. My name, Diane, has a remote connection to Diana in The Phantom." Even Mandrake's elegant mustache, top hat, tuxedo, and walking cane are reminiscent of Falk's personal style. 
      At a 1991 surprise birthday party for Falk, famed cartoonist Jules Pfeiffer was quoted as saying, "The Phantom was the model for the superheroes that followed. Falk created mysterious universes with strange happenings, before the era of television. The inspiration for much of the recent fantasy films stems from the creation of characters like those he invented." 
      The most widely read superhero strip today, The Phantom is translated into approximately fifteen languages and is carried by more than five hundred newspapers in forty countries. 
      A worldwide following 
       Among The Phantom's many fans are several pop-culture icons. Federico Fellini, known for his avant-garde films such as La Dolce Vita and La Strada, met Falk in the late 1930s. 
      "When we first met, my strips were just starting to print in Italy," recalls Falk. "I remember the first time I went to Venice. I was on the Grand Canal, and I saw a little boy reading a large album of Mandrake strips. Coincidentally, some of the strips were actually set in Venice." 
      Later, when he was a popular director, Fellini said that he had always wanted to do a Mandrake film and he wanted Marcello Mastroianni to play the lead. Mastroianni himself was enthusiastic about the project, but, unfortunately, when Fellini died the project was never completed." 
      The Phantom remains popular with international fans. In Scandinavia, his fan clubs rival the Boy Scouts for size and good deeds; indeed, a king of Sweden has been a member of the Phantom Fan Club. There is also a Phantom theme park in Sweden. 
      "I love to travel to other countries and meet fans of Mandrake and The Phantom," Falk says. "I have heard some great stories from people I have met." 
      In Haiti, the Phantom's oath was taken by a group of revolutionaries during the tyrannical reign of Papa Doc Duvalier. The story is that a group of young officers swore to battle inhumanity and injustice by staging a revolution during a large parade. Unfortunately, the plan was leaked. The effort was foiled, and the young officers were never heard from again. 
      Widely recognized for his continuing contribution to American pop culture, Falk is not short on domestic recognition either. In May 1994, he was honored by his hometown, St. Louis, with his very own Lee Falk Day. "I was in town for a comics conference," he explains. "I have a slide show called The Golden Age of Comics, which includes pictures and the history of comics from the Yellow Kid in 1895 up to the strips of the 1950s such as Peanuts. At that slide show, they announced that I was being honored and presented me with a beautiful certificate, which I have in my home." 
      Falk has loaned himself and his talents to many politically correct and socially conscientious causes. "One thing we did that was great fun was during Nancy Reagan's 'Just Say No to Drugs' campaign. I was on a train with Mandrake and The Phantom, and we would visit towns and the kids with this message. Nancy Reagan came by at one of the stops, and we had a great time." 
      Falk is a prolific writer. Besides his comics, he has written five of fifteen paperback novels about The Phantom—the other ten being adapted from his treatments. 
      Falk has also written a dozen plays and two musicals, Happy Dollar and Mandrake the Magician. He has produced and directed plays in summer theaters in Massachusetts and a winter theater in Nassau, the Bahamas. 
      Having produced over three- hundred plays, Falk has presented such talents as Ethel Waters, Chico Marx, Marlon Brando, and Ezio Pinza. Falk has directed nearly a hundred productions with stars like Charlton Heston. 
      Falk states that he enjoys writing plays and likens writing one to creating a comic strip. "I think the art of writing a comic strip is closer to the theater and to film technique than any other kind of writing I know," he observes. "When I do stories for Mandrake and Phantom, I write a complete scenario for the artist in which I detail the description of the scene, the action, and the costumes. If new characters are being introduced, I write the descriptions and dialogue for each panel. With such a scenario in front of him, a cameraman could take this and shoot it, or an artist can take it and draw it." 
      When asked of any new roads he would like to travel, Falk replies, "I never made Broadway, and that is my one disappointment." (Eventually, Mandrake the Magician and the Enchantress, a musical, was produced on Broadway).
      Falk is definitely a literary leader. His works within the comic genre are critically acclaimed both for their tight literary style and for their content and social value. 
      Falk has always held that violence is unacceptable for a hero. "I don't believe in violence in comics," he affirms. "The Phantom has never killed anybody in over sixty years. He has never shot an animal except to save someone. Instead of shooting, he will knock the wind out of someone, even though he could shoot the wings off a fly at a hundred yards. 
      "I believe that politics belongs on the editorial page. But consider that The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician reach one hundred million readers a day. The messages go out to more people than my personal efforts would reach." 
      Falk's personal beliefs are often mirrored in his writing and work. Many decades ago, his winter theater in Nassau, the Bahamas, catered to the rich who lived and played in this British colony. Patrons of his theater included the likes of King Edward, who left the throne for the love of Mrs. Simpson. Nassau was extremely segregated at this time, and the lush richness of the island and its society residents contrasted starkly with the abject poverty of the majority of Bahamians. 
      Theaters, like most public places, were segregated—though few of the black islanders could have afforded a ticket. Falk would often take his troupe down to the villages to bring a bit of theater to churches and the people. 
      "I remember how my father fought for civil rights for all people," reflects Diane. "This was before the 1960s and the civil rights movement. My father's theater was one of the first integrated theaters. There was a prominent doctor, a surgeon I believe, on the island. Father invited many of the society patrons to a special assigned-seating show. During this show, he sat the wealthiest white, female patron next to the black doctor. Today, that is no big deal, but back in the 1940s and '50s, well, it was people like my parents who helped the civil rights movement get started." 
       When asked about what is  next, Falk replies, "I continue to enjoy life, and I hope that the Phantom and Mandrake do also. I have been writing about them for so long. I feel that I am a chronicler of what they do: They are very strong characters with lives of their own. I am happily married with wonderful grown children and grandchildren. There is not a lot more one could ask for." 
      

Leon Harrison Gross, more known by the alias of Lee Falk, (April 28, 1911 - March 13, 1999) was an American writer, best known as the creator of the popular comic strip superheroes The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician, who at the height of their popularity secured him over a hundred million readers every day. He was also a playwright and theatrical director/producer, leading him to direct actors such as Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Paul Newman, Chico Marx, and Ethel Waters. Falk also contributed to a series of novels about the Phantom.

Life and career

Leon was born in St. Louis, where he spent his childhood and youth. His mother was Eleanor Alina (a name he would later on, in some form, use in both Mandrake and Phantom stories), and his father was Benjamin Gross. Both of his parents were Jewish. Benjamin Gross died when Leon was a child, and Eleanor remarried to Albert Falk Epstein, who became Leon's father figure in life.

Leon changed his surname after leaving college. He took the middle name of his stepfather (Albert Falk Epstein)"Falk," but "Lee" had been his nickname since childhood. His brother, Leslie, also took the name "Falk."

When he began his comics writing career, his official biography claimed that he was an experienced world traveller who had studied with Eastern mystics, etc. In fact, he had simply made it up in order to seem more like the right kind of person to be writing about globe-trotting heroes like Mandrake and the Phantom; the trip to New York to pitch Mandrake the Magician to King Features Syndicate was at the time the farthest he'd been from home. In later life, however, he became an experienced world traveller for real - at least partly, he said, to avoid the embarrassment of having his bluff inadvertently called by genuine travellers wanting to swap anecdotes.

During World War 2, Lee also worked as chief of propaganda for the new radio station KMOX in Illinois, where he became the leader of the radio foreign language division of the Office of War Information.

Lee Falk married three times, with Louise Kanaseriff, Constance Moorehead Lilienthal, and Elizabeth Moxley (interestingly, he married Elizabeth, a respected stage-director, not long before he decided to marry the Phantom and his longtime girlfriend Diana Palmer in The Phantom" strip). Elizabeth would sometimes help Lee with the scripts in his last years. She also finished his last Phantom stories after he died. Lee became the father of three children, Valerie (daughter of Louise Kanaseriff), and Diane and Conley (children of Constance Moorehead Lilienthal).

Lee died because of heart failure in 1999. He lived the last years of his life in New York, in an apartment with a panoramic view of the New York skyline and Central Park;and,lived during the summers in a house on Cape Cod. He literally wrote his comic strips from 1934 to the last days of his life, when in hospital he tore off his oxygen mask to dictate his stories. However, his two characters, Mandrake and, in particular, The Phantom, are still active and popular, both in comic books (the newest addition of the Phantom coming from Moonstone Books) and comic strips. New movie versions of both his creations are also on the schedule, with Mandrake set to premiere first of them in 2008.

Creating Mandrake and The Phantom

Lee had a fascination for stage magicians ever since he was a kid. Lee, according to himself, sketched the first few Mandrake strips himself. When asked why the magician looked so much like himself, he replied, “Well, of course he did. I was alone in a room with a mirror when I drew him!”

The Phantom was inspired by Falk’s fascination for myths and legends, like the ones about El Cid, King Arthur, Nordic and Greek folklore, and popular fictional characters like Tarzan and Mowgli from The Jungle Book. Falk originally considered the idea of calling his character The Gray Ghost, but finally decided that he preferred The Phantom. Lee revealed in an interview that Robin Hood, who often wore tights in the stories about him, inspired the skin-tight costume of the Phantom, which is known to have influenced the entire superhero-industry. In the A&E Phantom biography, he also explained that Greek busts inspired the idea of the Phantom’s pupils not showing when he wore his mask. The Greek busts had no pupils, which Falk felt gave them an inhuman, interesting look. It is known that the look of the Phantom inspired the look of what has today become known as the "superhero."

Lee thought that his comic strips would last a few weeks at best; however,he wrote them for more than six decades, until the last days of his life.

Theatre

Lee's biggest passion was the theatre. During a lifetime, he ran 5 theaters, and produced around 300 plays, and directed 100 of them. He wrote 12 plays, two of them musicals; "Happy Dollar" and "Mandrake the Magician," based on his comic strip creation. After Lee's death, his widow Elizabeth directed a musical called "Mandrake the Magician and the Enchantress," which was written by Lee, which was essentially the same as the previous "Mandrake the Magician" musical. Some of his plays starred well known actors like Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston,Celeste Holm, Constance Moorehead, Basil Rathbone, Chico Marx, Ethel Waters, Paul Newman, Ezio Pinza, James Mason, Jack Warner, Shelley Winters, Farley Granger, Eve Arden, Alexis Smith, Victor Jory, Cedric Hardwicke, Eva Marie Saint, Eva Gabor, Sarah Churchill, James Donn, Eddie Bracken, Ann Corio, Robert Wilcox, and Paul Robeson.

The actors were all paid to perform, but many of them worked on fractions on what they would normally earn with their movie work. Lee was proud to tell that Marlon Brando turned down an offer of $10 000 a week to act on Broadway, in favor of working for Lee in Boston in 1953 in the play "Arms and the Man." His Boston contract was less than $500 a week.

Awards and recognition

Lee won many awards for his dedication to the field of writing for comics and theatre. Here are a selected few of them:

• The Yellow Kid Award (1971)
• The Roman Lifetime Achievement Award
• The Adamson Award for best foreign comics creator (Sweden, 1977)
• The Golden Adamson (Sweden, 1986)
• Silver T-Square Award (Reuben Award, 1986)
• In May 1994, his birthplace St. Louis honored him with Lee Falk Day.

On the premiere of The Phantom movie starring Billy Zane, Lee received a letter from President Bill Clinton, congratulating him with his achievements.

Lee Falk has also been a candidate for the St. Louis Walk of Fame many times, but has so far not reached enough votes from the committee.

Quotes

"I give 100% of my time to theatre, and what's left goes to comics..."

(When asked about his age): "Never older than age thirty-nine.

"My only politics is up with democracy and down with dictatorships."

"Each artist, out of his own interests and imagination, creates his own world in his strip - this is true of Peanuts, Beetle Bailey, Popeye, all good strips. And you accomplish this not by imitating others - you come up with your own idea. To me, The Phantom and Mandrake are very real - much more than the people walking around whom I don't see very much. You have to believe in your own characters."

"The Phantom is a marvelous role model because he wins against evil. Evil does not triumph against the Phantom... He hates dictatorship and is in favor of democracy. He is also opposed to any violation of human rights."

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Lee Falk: Father of the Phantom

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