Max Fleischer

Max Fleischer was born on July 19, 1883 in Krakau, Galicia, Austria-Hungary.

Awarded U.S. patent 1,242,674, "Method of Producing Moving Picture Cartoons," for the rotoscope, which allowed film footage of a live figure to be used as a guide for drawing an animated figure. [1917]

He was a producer and actor, known for The Tantalizing Fly (1919), The Circus (1920) and Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (1936). He was married to Essie Goldstein.

Max Fleischer and his brother Dave Fleischer both released and produced the first sound cartoons. The first released was Come Take a Trip in My Airship (1924). The first produced was My Old Kentucky Home (1926).

Co-founder (w/Lee De Forest, Edwin Miles Fadman, Hugo Riesenfeld) Red Seal Pictures Corp., a distribution company formed in 1926.

Co-founded, with Dave Fleischer, animation production company Inkwell Studios in 1927.

Fleischer helped popularize the superhero film with the Oscar-nominated short animated film: Superman (1941). He also contributed to introducing Superman's ability of human flight: he could only leap in the comics before the film changed that.

According to Max's book, "Noah's Shoes," (1944) he held fifteen patents then being used in the Motion Picture Industry.

His son Richard Fleischer was hired by Walt Disney--Max's main competitor--to direct Disney's blockbuster 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). Although Disney and Max had been competitors for decades by that time, they had never actually met, and in fact Richard said that Disney often inquired of him, "How's your dad doing?".

The filming of Soylent Green (1973), which was directed by his son Richard Fleischer, was suspended for a week because of his death.