- Born
- Died
- Birth nameTheodor Seuss Geisel
- Nickname
- The Kaiser
- Height5′ 11″ (1.80 m)
- Acclaimed writer, Dr. Seuss was born Theodor Geisel in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Wednesday, March 2nd, 1904. After attending Dartmouth College and Oxford University, he began a career in advertising. His advertising cartoons, featuring Quick, Henry, the Flit!, appeared in several leading American magazines. Dr. Seuss's first children's book, titled "And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street", hit the market in 1937, changing the face of children's literature forever. It was rejected 27 times before it was finally published by Vanguard Press in 1937.
Following World War 2, Geisel and his first wife Helen moved to La Jolla, California, where he wrote and published several children's books in the coming years, including If I Ran the Zoo and Horton Hears a Who! A major turning point in Geisel's career came when, in response to a 1954 Life magazine article that criticized children's reading levels, Houghton Mifflin and Random House asked him to write a children's primer using 220 vocabulary words. The resulting book, The Cat in the Hat, was published in 1957 and was described by one critic as a "tour de force." The success of The Cat in the Hat cemented Geisel's place in children's literature.
In the following years, Geisel wrote many more books, both in his new simplified-vocabulary style and using his older, more elaborate technique, and including such favorites as Green Eggs and Ham and How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). In 1966, with the help of eminent & longtime cartoonist, Chuck Jones, The Grinch was immediately adapted into an animated film & Boris Karloff was the narrator, (& as the evil Grinch, that turned away from its bitterness, as the special begins) of the half-hour Christmas animation special.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 and three Academy Awards, Seuss overall was the author and illustrator of 44 children's books, some of which have been made into audio-cassettes, animated television specials, and videos for people of all ages. Even after his death in Autumn of 1991, Dr. Seuss continues to be the best-selling author of children's books in the world. Following the death of his first wife Helen Geisel in 1967, Geisel wed Audrey Geisel, who remained his wife until his death on Tuesday, September 24th, 1991, at the age of 87 years 6 months and 22 days. His full life-time was 31,982 days, equaling 4,568 weeks & 6 days.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous - Author, composer ("Get-Together Weather"), and artist who was educated at Dartmouth College (BA) at Lincoln College in Oxford, England, UK. He was a major in the US Army during World War II, and wrote and produced informational films. He also served in the ETO as Liaison Officer. He was awarded the Legion of Merit. He was a political cartoonist and an advertising executive, most famously creating numerous campaigns for Standard Oil. Most famously, he wrote and illustrated children's books that included "The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins," "Horton Hatches the Egg," "Yertle the Turtle," "The Cat in the Hat," "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue FIsh," and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!"- IMDb Mini Biography By: Hup234!
- SpousesAudrey Geisel(August 6, 1968 - September 24, 1991) (his death)Helen Geisel(November 29, 1927 - October 23, 1967) (her death)
- Verse written in anapestic tetrameter
- He expresses his views on social and political issues in his own books (e.g. The Lorax, The Sneetches, The Butter Battle Book, Yertle the Turtle, The Grinch, and Horton Hears a Who).
- Many of his books feature anthropomorphic animals.
- His poems feature repetitive rhymes.
- Most of his books are drawn in black and white with occasional detail.
- Seuss (his mother's maiden name) is pronounced to rhyme with "voice"--not with "loose", as it commonly is.
- His first children's book, "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street" (1937), was rejected by over 20 publishers.
- Of his many works, only four could truly be called political. "The Lorax" was a parable on short-sighted exploitation of natural resources, "The Butter Battle Book" was a commentary on the arms race, "The Sneetches" dealt with racism and "Yertle the Turtle" himself was representative of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.
- The film adaptation of "The Lorax" (The Lorax (2012)) was released on what would have been his 108th birthday.
- Was a recluse, spending much of his time alone in his studio.
- I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.
- [asked why he was not a father of any children] You keep having kids, I'll keep writing books for them.
- Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.
- [on the false rumor that he disliked children] Well, like anyone you know, there are good kids and there are creeps. And I like the good ones and I don't like the creeps.
- Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
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