18 maart 2004

George Pal in Eindhoven




He was born in Cegléd, Austria–Hungary, the son of György Pál Marczincsak Sr. and his wife Maria. He graduated from the Budapest Academy of Arts in 1928 (aged 20). From 1928 to 1931, he made films for Hunnia Films of Budapest, Hungary.
At the age of 23 in 1931 he married Elisabeth "Zsoka" Grandjean, and moving to Berlin, founded Trickfilm-Studio Gmbh Pal und Wittke, with UFA Studios as its main customer from 1931 to 1933. During this time, he patented Pal-Doll (known as Puppetoons in the USA).
In 1933 he worked in Prague; in 1934, he made a film advertisement in his hotel room in Paris, and was invited by Philips to make two more ad shorts. He started to use Pal-Doll techniques in Eindhoven, in a former butchery, then at villa-studio Suny Home. He left Germany as the Nazis came to power.
He made five films before 1939 for the British company Horlicks Malted Milk. In December of that year, aged 32, he emigrated from Europe to the United States, and began work for Paramount Pictures. At this time, his friend Walter Lantz helped him obtain American citizenship.
As an animator, he made the Puppetoons series in the 1940s, which led to him being awarded an honorary Oscar in 1943 for "the development of novel methods and techniques in the production of short subjects known as Puppetoons". Pal then switched to live action film making with The Great Rupert (1950).