Background
Sarg was born in Cobán, Guatemala, to Francis Charles Sarg and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Parker.
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Tony Sarg
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He was described as "America"s Puppet Master", and in his biography as the father of modern puppetry in North America. The elder Sarg was a consul representing Germany. Parker was English. The family returned to the German Empire in 1887.
Sarg entered a military academy at age 14 and received a commission as lieutenant at 17.
In 1905 (in his mid-20s) he resigned his commission and took up residence in the United Kingdom, where he pursued a relationship with Bertha Eleanor McGowan, an American he had met when she was a tourist in Germany. In 1920, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
In 1921, Sarg animated the film The First Circus, an inventive cartoon for producer Herbert M. Dawley, who was credited as co-animator. In 1928, he designed, and his protégé Bil Baird built tethered helium-filled balloons up to 125 feet (40 m) long, resembling animals, for the New York institution of Macy"s department store, involving a number of issues familiar from puppetry.
These participated in the store"s Thanksgiving Day parade.
In 1935, he undertook the puppet-related work of designing Macy"s elaborate animated window display between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The pinnacle of Sarg"s visibility was at the 1933 Chicago World"s Fair, where his cumulative audience was 3 million. Baird was heavily involved in this production, as were Rufus and Margo Rose.
Those three left his studio that year to start a new one themselves.
Sarg no longer innovated as much as competing puppet studios, and his economic fortunes declined as others gained a following. He both went into bankruptcy, and mounted his last production, in 1939.
In mid-February 1942, Sarg had surgery for a ruptured appendix, and died three weeks later of complications arising from lieutenant He is buried at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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Born
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Died
February 17, 1942 (aged 61) -
Nationality
United States