Director-animator Gene Deitch passed away on Thursday, April 16, 2020, at his home in Prague. He was 95 years old.

A Chicago native born on August 8, 1924, Deitch’s art career began while working for North American Aviation, drawing aircraft blueprints. In the late ’40s, he created covers and interior art for jazz magazine, The Record Changer.

In ’55 he apprenticed at United Productions of America animation studio, eventually becoming creative director of Terrytoons, where he created characters like Sidney the Elephant and Clint Clobber. He wrote and drew the comic strip The Real-Great Adventures of Terr’ble Thompson!, Hero of History, which ran in 1955-1956. His cartoon Sidney’s Family Tree was nominated for an Academy Award in early ’58.

He relocated to Prague in 1959 first to work on the film Munro and then stayed there after meeting his future wife, Zdena. The film would appear as a short before Breakfast at Tiffany’s and then won an Academy Award in ’61.

In the early ’60s, Deitch directed Popeye cartoons and Tom and Jerry shorts. Around that time, he also directed and co-produced a series of Krazy Kat TV shorts and co-produced The Bluffers, which was based on one of his original ideas. In ’66, he directed Alice of Wonderland in Paris and created the young girl adventurer, Terr’ble Tessie. At that point, he also worked on a 13-minute animated short for The Hobbit, which was considered lost until 2012.

From the late ’60s until he retired in 2008, he was the leading animation director for Weston Woods Studios, adapting children’s books. In 2003, he was awarded the Annie Awards’ Winsor McCay Award for his lifetime of work in animation.