Bruce Stark
Encyclopedia
Born in 1933 in New York, he moved with his family at age three to New Jersey. After serving with the Navy during the Korean War, he attended the School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
, dug ditches, drove a truck and freelanced artwork, finally landing a permanent job in 1960 as a staff artist with the New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
, where he contributed celebrity caricatures and sports cartoons for the next 22 years, continuing to live in New Jersey with his wife Pat and two sons, Bob and Ron.
During those decades, Stark also created covers for Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...
, Industry Week, Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
and TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
, plus numerous paperback covers. He contributed interior artwork to Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...
, Mad
Mad (magazine)
Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
, The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
, Golf Digest
Golf Digest
Golf Digest is a monthly golf magazine published by Condé Nast Publications in the United States. It is a generalist golf publication covering recreational golf and men's and women's competitive golf. Condé Nast Publications also publishes the more specialized , and Golf World Business. The...
and other magazines.
Animation
He produced his own animated television special, The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians, telecast April 7, 1970 on ABC. It combined actual voices with his animated caricatures of Jack BennyJack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
, George Burns
George Burns
George Burns , born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, television and movies, with and without his wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became...
, Phyllis Diller, George Jessel, Jack E. Leonard, Groucho Marx
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...
, the Smothers Brothers, Flip Wilson
Flip Wilson
Clerow Wilson, Jr. , known professionally as Flip Wilson, was an American comedian and actor. In the early 1970s, Wilson hosted his own weekly variety series, The Flip Wilson Show...
and Henny Youngman
Henny Youngman
Henry "Henny" Youngman was a British-born American comedian and violinist famous for "one-liners", short, simple jokes usually delivered rapid-fire...
. Paul Frees
Paul Frees
Paul Frees was an American voice actor and character actor.-Biography:He was born Solomon Hersh Frees in Chicago...
supplied the voices of W.C. Fields, Chico Marx
Chico Marx
Leonard "Chico" Marx was an American comedian and film star as part of the Marx Brothers. His persona in the act was that of a dim-witted albeit crafty con artist, seemingly of rural Italian origin, who wore shabby clothes, and sported a curly-haired wig and Tyrolean hat.As the first-born of the...
and Zeppo Marx
Zeppo Marx
Herbert Manfred "Zeppo" Marx was an American film star, musician, engineer, theatrical agent and businessman. He was the youngest of the five Marx Brothers. He appeared in the first five Marx Brothers feature films, from 1929 to 1933, but then left the act to start his second career as an...
.
Listed in Who's Who in America for over 20 years, Stark was a two-time winner of the National Cartoonists Society
National Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops...
's Reuben Category Award for Best Sports Cartoonist of the Year (1966, 1975), as well as Best Special Features Cartoonist for 1968.
Awards and exhibitions
His work is represented in the permanent collections of the Everett DirksenEverett Dirksen
Everett McKinley Dirksen was an American politician of the Republican Party. He represented Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate...
Library, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York
Cooperstown, New York
Cooperstown is a village in Otsego County, New York, USA. It is located in the Town of Otsego. The population was estimated to be 1,852 at the 2010 census.The Village of Cooperstown is the county seat of Otsego County, New York...
and the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...
. For three years (1970, 1971, 1973), he won the New York Newspaper Guild's Page One award for Best Sports Cartoon of the Year. His one-man shows include the Art Institute in Pittsburgh, the University of Pennsylvania (1970) and the New York Bank for Savings (1971). He retired from the Daily News in 1982 but continued to freelance.
His caricature originals have been requested by many of his subjects, including Art Carney
Art Carney
Arthur William Matthew “Art” Carney was an American actor in film, stage, television and radio. He is best known for playing Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the situation comedy The Honeymooners....
, Xavier Cugat
Xavier Cugat
Xavier Cugat was a Spanish-American bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a key personality in the spread of Latin music in United States popular music. He was also a cartoonist and a successful businessman...
, Buddy Hackett
Buddy Hackett
Buddy Hackett was an American comedian and actor.-Early life:Hackett was born in Brooklyn, New York, New York, the son of a Jewish upholsterer. He grew up on 54th and 14th Ave in Borough Park, Brooklyn, across from Public School 103...
, Suzanne Pleshette
Suzanne Pleshette
Suzanne Pleshette was an American actress, on stage, screen and television.After beginning her career in theatre, she began appearing in films in the early 1960s, such as Rome Adventure and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds...
, Priscilla Presley
Priscilla Presley
Priscilla Presley is an American actress and businesswoman. She is the ex-wife of singer Elvis Presley, and the mother of singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Presley....
and Ted Williams
Ted Williams
Theodore Samuel "Ted" Williams was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 21-year Major League Baseball career as the left fielder for the Boston Red Sox...
.
Family
His son, Ron Stark, is also an artist, focusing on sports art and illustration since 1991. Living in Indian Harbour Beach, FloridaIndian Harbour Beach, Florida
Indian Harbour Beach is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. The population was 8,152 at the 2000 census. As of 2005, the population estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau is 8,441...
with his wife Trish and their four children (Elizabeth, Jack, Chipper, Victoria), Ron has illustrated for books, magazines, newspapers and Topps cards. His oil painting of Knute Rockne can be seen on Knute Rockne: A Portrait of a Notre Dame Legend by Michael R. Steele, and he Illustrated Peter Golenbock's book, The Spirit of St. Louis. Artwork created by Ron Stark for Ted Williams' personal collection was later donated to the Ted Williams Museum.