Stan Lee Gary Friedrich Popular Books

Stan Lee Gary Friedrich Biography & Facts

Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber ; December 28, 1922 – November 12, 2018) was an American comic book writer, editor, publisher and producer. He rose through the ranks of a family-run business called Timely Comics which would later become Marvel Comics. He was Marvel's primary creative leader for two decades, leading its expansion from a small division of a publishing house to a multimedia corporation that dominated the comics and film industries. In collaboration with others at Marvel—particularly co-writers and artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko—he co-created iconic characters, including Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Ant-Man, the Wasp, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, the Scarlet Witch, and Black Widow. These and other characters' introductions in the 1960s pioneered a more naturalistic approach in superhero comics, and, in the 1970s, Lee challenged the restrictions of the Comics Code Authority, indirectly leading to changes in its policies. In the 1980s, he pursued the development of Marvel properties in other media, with mixed results. Following his retirement from Marvel in the 1990s, Lee remained a public figurehead for the company. He frequently made cameo appearances in films and television shows based on Marvel properties on which he received an executive producer credit, which allowed him to become the person with the highest-grossing film total ever. He continued independent creative ventures until his death, aged 95, in 2018. Lee was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995. He received the NEA's National Medal of Arts in 2008. Biography Early life Stanley Martin Lieber was born on December 28, 1922, in Manhattan, New York City, in the apartment of his Romanian-born Jewish immigrant parents, Celia (née Solomon) and Jack Lieber, at the corner of West 98th Street and West End Avenue. Lee was raised in a Jewish household. In a 2002 interview, he stated when asked if he believed in God, "Well, let me put it this way... [Pauses.] No, I'm not going to try to be clever. I really don't know. I just don't know." On another interview from 2011, when asked about his Romanian origins and his relationship with the country, he said that he had never visited it and that he did not know Romanian because his parents never taught it to him. Lee's father, trained as a dress cutter, worked only sporadically after the Great Depression. The family moved further uptown to Fort Washington Avenue, in Washington Heights, Manhattan. Lee had one younger brother named Larry Lieber. He said in 2006 that as a child he was influenced by books and movies, particularly those with Errol Flynn playing heroic roles. Reading The Scarlet Pimpernel, he called the title character "the first superhero I had read about, the first character who could be called a superhero." By the time Lee was in his teens, the family was living in an apartment at 1720 University Avenue in The Bronx. Lee described it as "a third-floor apartment facing out back". Lee and his brother shared the bedroom, while their parents slept on a foldout couch. Lee attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. In his youth, Lee enjoyed writing, and entertained dreams of writing the "Great American Novel" one day. He said that in his youth he worked such part-time jobs as writing obituaries for a news service and press releases for the National Tuberculosis Center; delivering sandwiches for the Jack May pharmacy to offices in Rockefeller Center; working as an office boy for a trouser manufacturer; ushering at the Rivoli Theater on Broadway; and selling subscriptions to the New York Herald Tribune newspaper. At fifteen, Lee entered a high school essay competition sponsored by the New York Herald Tribune, called "The Biggest News of the Week Contest." Lee claimed to have won the prize for three straight weeks, goading the newspaper to write him and ask him to let someone else win. The paper suggested he look into writing professionally, which Lee claimed "probably changed my life." He graduated from high school early, aged sixteen and a half, in 1939 and joined the WPA Federal Theatre Project. Marriage and residences From 1945 to 1947, Lee lived in the rented top floor of a brownstone in the East 90s in Manhattan. He married Joan Clayton Boocock, originally from Newcastle, England, on December 5, 1947, and in 1949, the couple bought a house in Woodmere, New York, on Long Island, living there through 1952. Their daughter Joan Celia "J. C." Lee was born in 1950. Another daughter, Jan Lee, died a few days after her birth in 1953. The Lees resided in the Long Island community of Hewlett Harbor, New York, from 1952 to 1980. They also owned a condominium on East 63rd Street in Manhattan from 1975 to 1980, and during the 1970s they owned a vacation home in Remsenburg, New York. For their move to the West Coast in 1981, they bought a home in West Hollywood, California, previously owned by comedian Jack Benny's radio announcer Don Wilson. Philanthropy The Stan Lee Foundation was founded in 2010 to focus on literacy, education, and the arts. Its stated goals include supporting programs and ideas that improve access to literacy resources, as well as promoting diversity, national literacy, culture and the arts. Lee regularly donated papers, photographs, recordings and personal effects to the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming between 1981 and 2011. They cover the period from 1926 to 2011. Legal concerns Lee engaged in several legal actions in his later years. Intellectual property In 2017, POW! was acquired by Camsing International, a Chinese company, during the period Lee was caring for his terminally ill wife and dealing with his own failing eyesight. Lee filed a US$1 billion lawsuit against POW! in May 2018, asserting that POW! had not disclosed the terms of its acquisition by Camsing to him. Lee stated that POW! CEO Shane Duffy and co-founder Gill Champion had presented him with what they said was a non-exclusive license for POW! for him to sign, under Camsing, to use his likeness and other intellectual property. This contract turned out to be an exclusive license, which Lee claimed he would never have entered. Lee's lawsuit contended that POW! took over his social media accounts and was impersonating him inappropriately. POW! considered these complaints without merit and claimed that both Lee and his daughter J.C. were aware of the terms. The lawsuit was dropped in July 2018, with Lee issuing the statement: "The whole thing has been confusing to everyone, including myself and the fans, but I am now happy to be surrounded by those who want the best for me" and saying that he was happy to be working with POW! again. Following Lee's death, his daughter J.C. gathered a legal team to review the legal situation relating to Lee's intellectual property from his later years. In September 20.... Discover the Stan Lee Gary Friedrich popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Stan Lee Gary Friedrich books.