By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society
Award-winning cartoonist George Lichty, creator of the famed “Grin and Bear It,” cartoon series, lived in Sausalito from 1948 into the 60s.
Shortly after he and his wife Eleanor settled here with their two daughters, Licthy was profiled in the Sausalito News. Writer Joanne Nichols claimed that “the man whose ‘Grin and Bear It’ cartoons in the San Francisco Chronicle are one of the better things about mornings.” She went on to recount Lichty’s somewhat haphazard work habits:
“Already a seasoned commuter, Lichty rides the bus to work every morning and home every night. He goes to work every day, not because he wants to, but because he has to, he explains: "I’m not one of those boys who can concentrate for a couple of days and turn out a week’s work.
“But the schedule, once he gets to work, is not precisely the timeclock variety. He draws awhile, gets up, looks out the window, has a cigarette, goes down for a coffee, talks to somebody, draws some more. How long it takes to do a cartoon this way depends . . . He has to keep at least two weeks ahead of himself to allow time for mailing the cartoons to the syndicate, making mats, and distributing them to the 215 papers throughout the country that carry his work. He’s behind right now, and had to work last weekend to catch up.”
Describing the new Sausalitan as “A quiet, dark-haired man in his mid-forties,” Ms. Nichols went on to detail his path to our town:
“Lichty has been a professional cartoonist since he left college. He was editor of the college humor magazine at the University of Michigan. A number of his cartoons, of course, appeared in the magazine, and when he graduated the editor of the old Chicago Journal offered him a job. The Journal was then in the process of folding, and one week later was absorbed by the Chicago Daily Times, first tabloid in the lake city.
“Lichty, a native of Chicago, remained with the Times. His early cartoons were essentially the same type as the things he does now (though they look horrible now, he says), and he’s never done any editorial page political cartoons or the like, confining his editorializing to needling windy senators. ‘Grin and Bear It’ was born in 1932. For two years it was a Times exclusive; then it was syndicated and spread throughout the nation.”
After an unsatisfying stay in Haiti, Lichty told the News, he put away his sketchbook and left. But, as Nichols put it:
“Sausalito, he feels, may get him started again—the sun and water and brown-shouldered hills. The Lichty’s came to Sausalito from the home in Winnetka (some 25 miles north of Chicago on the lake) because they usually go to Florida about this time of year and they decided to try California this summer instead. They drove from Chicago to Los Angeles and up the coast, and like Sausalito better than anything else they saw along the way. Meanwhile, the little girls Linda, 6, and Susan, 4, are getting brown, and their parents are continuing full of raptures over the changing beauty they see from their windows.”
During his time here, Lichty displayed his creative versatility by playing drums in Guckenheimer's Sour Kraut Band, a comic musical aggregation formed by Richard Gump, President of the luxury San Francisco retailer. The News had some fun announcing the band’s appearance at the grand opening of the Trade Fair aboard the ferry boat Berkeley in February 1960:
“The Guckenheimer Sour Krauts, often described as “men against the music world” began in Sausalito in 1948 or 1949 when San Francisco businessman Richard Gump decried Christmas commercialism, or wanted to let off steam, or to play quaintly sour Bavarian melodies Accounts vary.
“Anyway, several Sausalitans agreed with Gump that there was a serious lack in music and they set out to enlarge that lack. Hence the Guckenheimers began appearing on Bay Area street corners, playing a little Wagner, a little Bach and a little off-key.
“Although the Guckenheimer music has been said to have the pucker of a mouthful of rosin Lifesavers, someone has allowed them to preserve it on records. Sour Kraut records to date include Music For Non-Thinkers and Oom-Pah-Pah in Hi-Fi. It is hoped that Trade Fair will remain standing after the Sour Krauts finish playing.”
Later, George Lichty moved his family to Sonoma County, where he died at age 78.