Warren King was born on January 3, 1916 in Brooklyn. His father, Thomas J. King, was born in 1889 in New York City. His mother, Rose E. Nugent, was born in 1890 in NYC. His parents married on November 18, 1905. They had three children, Warren (b.1910), Dorothy (b.1921), and Mildred (b.1925). The King family lived on Long Island, NY. His father was a Certified Public Accountant.
Warren King attended public schools on Long Island. He enjoyed growing up near the Long Island Sound and became an accomplished athlete in swimming and sailing.
In June of 1934 he graduated from public high school in Queens. Thanks to his sports record he received a college scholarship to attend Fordham University in the Bronx.
While he studied at Fordham University, he also became interested in art, and contributed illustrations to the school year book and school newspaper. He also became the champion of the school's swim team. He held that title undefeated for four years.
In June of 1938 Warren King graduated from college with a Bachelor of Sciences degree.
In 1939 he began to study at the Grand Central School of Art, which was located on the sky-lit top floor of the landmark Grand Central Terminal Building on 42nd Street and Park Avenue.
In 1940 he began to work as a free-lance illustrator in the NYC publishing industry. His work appeared in advertising, magazines, and books. He worked as a newspaper artist, where he met the legendary cartoonist, Rube Goldberg (1883-1970), for whom he began to work as a studio assistant. According to the artist, "Rube Goldberg was my second father!"
In 1940 he lived at home with his parents and younger sisters at 110-11 Jewel Avenue in Forest Hills, Queens, NY.
On August 5, 1940 Warren King married Lucille Teresa Smollon in Queens, NY. She was born on February 15, 1919 in Brooklyn, and had graduated from the same high school that Warren King had attended. They were high school sweethearts. She was a synchronized swimmer. Her father was a newspaper pressman.
In 1941 he studied at the Phoenix Art Institute at 160 Lexington Avenue at East 30th Street in Manhattan. He began to contribute drawings to comic books, such as Zip Comics, Top-Notch Comics, and Blue Ribbon Comics, all of which were produced by M.L.J. Magazines.
During WWII Warren King served with the Army Air Corps, where his college education and artistic skills were both valued. He was honorably discharged in 1945 and returned to NYC to resume his career in illustration.
In 1946 Warren King and his wife Lucille Teresa (Smollon) King had a child, Dennis King.
In 1946 he illustrated several pulp magazines that were produced by Arrow Publications. He began to work with Bern Williams (1910-1987) and David Hellman, who were partners in the Hellman Williams Company at 5 Beekman Street in Greenwich Village. In the post-war period he also worked with Bernard & Ellis Publishers at 18 East 41st Street.
In 1948 the marriage between Warren King and Lucille Teresa (Smollon) King ended in divorce.
In 1952 Warren King married his second wife Nadine Sensabaugh. She was born in 1924 in Maryland. She had studied Russian dancing and worked as a fashion model as well as a featured artist at Hollywood Modeling Studios. The married couple moved to a suburban home in Connecticut, where they raised two children, twins Patricia and Suzanne (b.1954).
In 1955 Warren King began to work as an Editorial Cartoonist at The New York Daily News.
In 1956 Warren King, Tom Lovell, and Harold Von Schmidt (1893-1982) won a poster contest conducted by the U.S. Pentagon Department of Military Information.
During his twenty years at The New York Daily News, Warren King received wide professional recognition and was promoted to Chief Editorial Cartoonist.
By 1970 his mother had died and his elderly widowed father had come to live with the family in Connecticut.
On February 7, 1973 his father died at the age of eighty-four in the hospital in Norwalk, CT.
Warren King died at the age of sixty-two in his home in Norwalk on February 9, 1978.
© David Saunders 2017 |
