David "Dave" Fleischer was a renowned American animator, film director, and film producer, best known as a co-owner of Fleischer Studios alongside his older brother Max Fleischer. Born on July 14, 1894, in New York City, Dave began his career in the film industry around 1913-1914, working as a film cutter for the American branch of Pathé.
As a key figure in Fleischer Studios, Dave was notable for his work as the rotoscope model for the studio's first character, Koko the Clown. He went on to become a director and later producer of the studio's output, overseeing several notable cartoon series, including Talkartoons, Betty Boop Cartoons, Popeye the Sailor, Color Classics, and others.
Throughout his career, Dave supervised two animated features released through Paramount Pictures, Gulliver's Travels (1939) and Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941). However, the debt Fleischer Studios owed to Paramount for the budgets of those features, combined with the lack of success from non-Popeye cartoons, led to the studio's acquisition by Paramount in May 1941.
Dave was asked by Paramount to develop a cartoon series featuring Superman, which became the most successful cartoon of the late period of Fleischer Studios. However, his personal and professional relationship with his brother Max deteriorated due to his extramarital affair with a Miami secretary in 1938, and subsequent disputes.
In April 1942, Dave left Fleischer Studios to become President of Screen Gems at Columbia Pictures, although he remained co-manager of Fleischer Studios until Paramount reorganized the studio in May 1942. After his departure, the studio was reorganized as Famous Studios.
In the late 1940s, Dave moved to Universal, where he worked as a special effects expert and general problem-solver on films such as Francis (1950),The Birds (1963),and Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). Dave Fleischer passed away on June 25, 1979, in Woodland Hills, California, after spending over a decade in retirement.
