Author Maniates Belle Kanaris

to Cincinnati, followed them soon after, and settled the family in New York City in 1915. He had been raised around puppets, inherited his grandmother's collection of them, developed them as a hobby that enhanced the impression he made on other artists, and finally in 1917 turned them into a profession. In 1920, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1928, he designed, and his protege Bil Baird built tethered helium-filled balloons up to 125 feet (40 m) long, resembling animals, for the New York institution of Macy's department store, involving a number issues familiar from puppetry; these participated in the store's Thanksgiving Day parade. In 1935, he undertook the puppet-related work of designing Macy's elaborate animated window display between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The pinnacle of Sarg's visibility was at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, where his cumulative audience was 3 million; Baird was heavily involved in this production, as were Rufus and Margo Rose. Those three left his studio that year to start a new one themselves. Sarg no longer innovated as much as competing puppet studios, and his economic fortunes declined as others gained a following; he both went into bankruptcy, and mounted his last production, in 1939. In mid-February 1942, Sarg had surgery for a ruptured appendix, and died three weeks later of complications arising from it.