LOS ANGELES — Cartoonist Cullum dies of cancer
Leo Cullum, a cartoonist whose droll images of dog doctors, businessmen in sombreros and lions in therapy helped define the style of The New Yorker magazine in recent decades, has died, his brother said Monday night.
Thomas Cullum told The Associated Press that Leo Cullum died of cancer Saturday in Malibu, five years after he was diagnosed with the disease. He was 68.
For 33 years, Cullum contributed hundreds of cartoons to the magazine.
His distinctive characters - usually with pointy noses and always lacking chins - were also often used for the magazine’s popular caption contest.
One of his best-known cartoons featured a stern man standing with his cat next to its litter and saying, “Never, ever think outside the box.”
Another shows a clown giving a little girl a balloon with the caveat, “But remember, you’re responsible for your own happiness.”
For most of his years as a cartoonist, Cullum was also a full-time pilot for TWA and later American Airlines. He retired at 60 and devoted himself to drawing.
In all he contributed 819 cartoons to the magazine, the last of which appeared in Monday’s issue, according to The New York Times, which first reported his death.
In addition to his brother, Leo Cullum is survived by his wife and two daughters.
Stein, Fiddler on the Roof playwright
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK - Playwright
Joseph Stein, who turned a Yiddish short story into the classic Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof and later wrote the screenplay for its successful movie adaptation, has died at age 98.
His wife, Elisa Stein, said he died at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan on Sunday from complications after a fall. He had been hospitalized for treatment for prostate cancer, his relatives said.
“He was, I think, the most ebullient, optimistic and happy man I’ve ever known,” said a son, Harry Stein, reached by phone Monday. “He was constantly good-humored, even in difficult times.”
Stein’s wife said he was a “very funny man” who “kept people in the hospital in stitches.”
Stein, who won a Tony Award for his work on Fiddler, also supplied the book, or story, for nearly a dozen other musicals, including Zorba, Mr. Wonderful and Plain and Fancy. He also wrote for radio and for television during its early golden age.
But it was Fiddler, based on Sholom Aleichem’s Tevye and His Daughters, that proved to be his biggest hit. The show opened on Broadway in September 1964 and ran for more than 3,200 performances. Fiddler also has had several Broadway revivals, the last in 2004.
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 10/27/2010