Lily Renée
Encyclopedia
Lily Renée Wilheim Peters Phillips, (born Lily Renée Wilheim, c. 1925, Vienna
, Austria
), often credited as L. Renée, Lily Renée, or Reney, is an Austrian-American artist, writer, and playwright. She escaped from Nazi-occupied Vienna to England and later New York, whereupon she found work as a penciller
at Fiction House
on such titles as The Werewolf Hunter, Jane Martin and Senorita Rio.
When she was about 13, the Anschluss
happened, and the majority of Viennese welcomed the Nazis. She was no longer allowed to attend school, and her parents started a nearly two year effort to get her out of the country. Having taken English in school, she had a British penpal named Molly Kealy, and the Wilheims appealed to the Kealys to send her a visitors permit. When it finally arrived, her family put her on the Kindertransport
in late 1939. She landed in Leeds
, England, and went to stay with the Kealys in nearby Horseforth. Mrs. Kealy, however, seemed to think that by bringing her over, they were getting an unpaid servant.
After war officially broke out, about a month later, Mrs. Kealy pointed out that she didn't even know if her parents were even alive anymore. That day, Phillips walked into Leeds and applied at an employment agency, quickly securing work as a mother's helper. She also worked a a servant, a caretaker, and a candy striper whose job it was to bring the newborns down the shelter whenever the air-raid sirens went off. She also attempted to find her parents work as servants, which was the easiest way to get anyone into England. Two families came close to agreeing, but backed out last minute because they were afraid her parents were too like their own peers and that the situation would be uncomfortable; "They did not see that it was a matter of life or death," she said later.
About 18 months after she left Austria, her parents had managed to secure passage to the United States by trading two buildings they owned with the Nazis, and she soon received a letter from them. Unfortunately, her passage was hindered by their earlier attempt to retain their valuables: they had given her their expensive Leica camera to take out of the country, and she had once lied about it to a Scotland Yard agent. She was required to check in once a week and was not allowed to move. She sneaked away to London in the middle of the night, but she was again detained at the waterfront. However, a stranger negotiated her release and she secured passage to New York
. She found out later, after the war, that two of her uncles and an aunt were killed by the Nazis.
designs, posing as a model for fashion illustrator Jane Turner
, and illustrating the Woolworth's catalog for 50 cents an hour. She also took night classes at the Art Students League and the School of Visual Arts
. One day in late 1942, her mother showed her an advertisement looking for comics
artists. Knowing nothing of comics, she scoffed at first, but her mother suggested all she needed to do was "draw Tarzan
and Jane
." The publisher, Fiction House
's flagship character was Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
, and Phillips secured the job.
Her first job was erasing the stray pencil lines of the other artists after they had been inked. The male artists frequently also scribbled obscene notes to her, and stared at her as she walked by "as if they were undressing me". She hated the job and frequently cried herself to sleep. But her desire to prove herself and the good pay ($18 a week) trumped her urge to quit, and she soon started penciling her own work.
Her first penciling job was for a character called Jane Martin, a female pilot working in the all-male aviation industry. Later she was given The Werewolf Hunter, about a professor and monster hunter, a strip that she said that no one else wanted. She convinced the writer that it should be a general supernatural title, gave him story ideas (all of which he used) and infused it with the Viennese art nouveau
and German fairy tales that she grew up with. Her art evoked German expressionist films
and her women were dressed in the high fashion of the day. She later took over Senorita Rio in 1944 and became the artist most identified with the character. She received a lot of fan mail from soldiers overseas (who all referred to her as "Mr. Renée") and occasionally wrote back and sent sketches, as a token of her appreciation for them fighting Nazis.
In 1947 she married artist Eric Peters, another Viennese refugee 22 years her senior. He had been a political cartoonist, and after drawing a caricature of Joseph Goebbels
, the Gestapo
showed up at his house to arrest him. However, he was not home at the time, and he was tipped off they were waiting for him, so he borrowed a pair of skis and escaped over the Alps. In 1948, after Fiction House moved out of New York, she and Peters went to work for St. John Publications
. They worked on Abbott & Costello comics together, with him drawing the comedians and her drawing the women and inking. She also drew romance stories for St. John.
Like many creators in the Golden Age of Comic Books
, she was embarrassed to be working in comics, but at the same time she also says that she had fun doing it and thrilled at seeing her covers on the newsstand. She approached her job as if she was a movie director, drawing all the sets, costumes, and actors.
tracked her down. Her children never knew she drew comics until she told her grandchildren. When her children were young, she wrote two children's books, Red is the Heart about "a boy [who] invents colors through his feelings" and Magic Next Door, a juvenile detective story. She also illustrated a book called Battle of the Bees by Carl Ewald and a version of Aesop
's Fables.
After her husband died in 1982, she started to take college classes in philosophy and English literature at Hunter College
. After writing a dialogue for her Ancient Chinese Philosophy term paper, she became interested in playwriting. She has written five plays, one of which called Dial God, was produced and performed at Hunter.
In 2007, she attended her first comic book convention, Comic-Con International
in San Diego, and Friends of Lulu
nominated her to their Hall of Fame. She still lives in Manhattan, near Madison Avenue.
In 2011, Lerner Publishing Group
's Graphic Universe line released a graphic biography of Phillips for young readers entitled Lily Renée: Escape Artist, scripted by Robbins with art by Anne Timmons
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
), often credited as L. Renée, Lily Renée, or Reney, is an Austrian-American artist, writer, and playwright. She escaped from Nazi-occupied Vienna to England and later New York, whereupon she found work as a penciller
Penciller
A penciller is an artist who works in the creation of comic books, graphic novels, and similar visual art forms.The penciller is the first step in rendering the story in visual form and may require several steps of feedback with the writer. These artists are concerned with layout to showcase...
at Fiction House
Fiction House
Fiction House is an American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. Its comics division was best known for its pinup-style good girl art, as epitomized by the company's most popular character, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.-History:-Jumbo and Jack...
on such titles as The Werewolf Hunter, Jane Martin and Senorita Rio.
Early life
Wilheim came from a well-off Viennese Jewish family, and was surrounded by art and culture from an early age. At the age of six, she had her first exhibition of her art from her school art class. Around that time, her mother entered her photograph into a contest where first prize was a movie contract; she won, but her father would not allow her to go into show business.When she was about 13, the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
happened, and the majority of Viennese welcomed the Nazis. She was no longer allowed to attend school, and her parents started a nearly two year effort to get her out of the country. Having taken English in school, she had a British penpal named Molly Kealy, and the Wilheims appealed to the Kealys to send her a visitors permit. When it finally arrived, her family put her on the Kindertransport
Kindertransport
Kindertransport is the name given to the rescue mission that took place nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Nazi Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Free City of Danzig...
in late 1939. She landed in Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
, England, and went to stay with the Kealys in nearby Horseforth. Mrs. Kealy, however, seemed to think that by bringing her over, they were getting an unpaid servant.
After war officially broke out, about a month later, Mrs. Kealy pointed out that she didn't even know if her parents were even alive anymore. That day, Phillips walked into Leeds and applied at an employment agency, quickly securing work as a mother's helper. She also worked a a servant, a caretaker, and a candy striper whose job it was to bring the newborns down the shelter whenever the air-raid sirens went off. She also attempted to find her parents work as servants, which was the easiest way to get anyone into England. Two families came close to agreeing, but backed out last minute because they were afraid her parents were too like their own peers and that the situation would be uncomfortable; "They did not see that it was a matter of life or death," she said later.
About 18 months after she left Austria, her parents had managed to secure passage to the United States by trading two buildings they owned with the Nazis, and she soon received a letter from them. Unfortunately, her passage was hindered by their earlier attempt to retain their valuables: they had given her their expensive Leica camera to take out of the country, and she had once lied about it to a Scotland Yard agent. She was required to check in once a week and was not allowed to move. She sneaked away to London in the middle of the night, but she was again detained at the waterfront. However, a stranger negotiated her release and she secured passage to New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. She found out later, after the war, that two of her uncles and an aunt were killed by the Nazis.
Career
In New York City, her family lived in one room under the roof in a building on 72nd Street on the West Side, along with other refugees. She took whatever odd jobs she could get to raise money, including painting boxes with TyroleanTyrolean
Tyrolean may refer to:* Anything from Tyrol* Tyrolean Aerial Tramway* Tyrolean Airways* Tyrolean hat* Tyrolean traverse, mountaineering manoeuvre* Tyrolean Hound* A type of cement render, applied by a hand-operated machine...
designs, posing as a model for fashion illustrator Jane Turner
Jane Turner
Jane Turner is an Australian actress, comedian and Logie Award winning comedy writer.Turner has appeared in many popular Australian TV programs, namely Prisoner in a straight dramatic role, with comedy roles in sketch comedy programs The D-Generation, Fast Forward, Full Frontal, Big Girl's Blouse...
, and illustrating the Woolworth's catalog for 50 cents an hour. She also took night classes at the Art Students League and the School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
. One day in late 1942, her mother showed her an advertisement looking for comics
Comics
Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...
artists. Knowing nothing of comics, she scoffed at first, but her mother suggested all she needed to do was "draw Tarzan
Tarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
and Jane
Jane Porter (Tarzan)
Jane Porter is a major character in Edgar Rice Burroughs's series of Tarzan novels, and in adaptations of the saga to other media, particularly film.- In the novels :...
." The publisher, Fiction House
Fiction House
Fiction House is an American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. Its comics division was best known for its pinup-style good girl art, as epitomized by the company's most popular character, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.-History:-Jumbo and Jack...
's flagship character was Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle is a fictional, American comic book jungle girl heroine, published originally by Fiction House. The female counterpart to Tarzan, Sheena had two things in common with Edgar Rice Burrough's Jungle Lord: Both possessed the ability to communicate with wild animals and were...
, and Phillips secured the job.
Her first job was erasing the stray pencil lines of the other artists after they had been inked. The male artists frequently also scribbled obscene notes to her, and stared at her as she walked by "as if they were undressing me". She hated the job and frequently cried herself to sleep. But her desire to prove herself and the good pay ($18 a week) trumped her urge to quit, and she soon started penciling her own work.
Her first penciling job was for a character called Jane Martin, a female pilot working in the all-male aviation industry. Later she was given The Werewolf Hunter, about a professor and monster hunter, a strip that she said that no one else wanted. She convinced the writer that it should be a general supernatural title, gave him story ideas (all of which he used) and infused it with the Viennese art nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
and German fairy tales that she grew up with. Her art evoked German expressionist films
German Expressionism
German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s...
and her women were dressed in the high fashion of the day. She later took over Senorita Rio in 1944 and became the artist most identified with the character. She received a lot of fan mail from soldiers overseas (who all referred to her as "Mr. Renée") and occasionally wrote back and sent sketches, as a token of her appreciation for them fighting Nazis.
In 1947 she married artist Eric Peters, another Viennese refugee 22 years her senior. He had been a political cartoonist, and after drawing a caricature of Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
, the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
showed up at his house to arrest him. However, he was not home at the time, and he was tipped off they were waiting for him, so he borrowed a pair of skis and escaped over the Alps. In 1948, after Fiction House moved out of New York, she and Peters went to work for St. John Publications
St. John Publications
St. John Publications was an American publisher of magazines and comic books. During its short existence , St. John's comic books established several industry firsts. Founded by Archer St. John , the firm was located in Manhattan at 545 Fifth Avenue. After the St...
. They worked on Abbott & Costello comics together, with him drawing the comedians and her drawing the women and inking. She also drew romance stories for St. John.
Like many creators in the Golden Age of Comic Books
Golden Age of Comic Books
The Golden Age of Comic Books was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought of as lasting from the late 1930s until the late 1940s or early 1950s...
, she was embarrassed to be working in comics, but at the same time she also says that she had fun doing it and thrilled at seeing her covers on the newsstand. She approached her job as if she was a movie director, drawing all the sets, costumes, and actors.
Later life
By 1949, her marriage to Peters had ended and she married an American named Randolph Phillips, with whom she had a son and a daughter. She left comics for nearly 50 years until cartoonist/historian Trina RobbinsTrina Robbins
Trina Robbins is an American comics artist and writer. She was an early and influential participant in the underground comix movement, and one of the few female artists in underground comix when she started. Both as a cartoonist and historian, Robbins has long been involved in creating outlets for...
tracked her down. Her children never knew she drew comics until she told her grandchildren. When her children were young, she wrote two children's books, Red is the Heart about "a boy [who] invents colors through his feelings" and Magic Next Door, a juvenile detective story. She also illustrated a book called Battle of the Bees by Carl Ewald and a version of Aesop
Aesop
Aesop was a Greek writer credited with a number of popular fables. Older spellings of his name have included Esop and Isope. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a...
's Fables.
After her husband died in 1982, she started to take college classes in philosophy and English literature at Hunter College
Hunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...
. After writing a dialogue for her Ancient Chinese Philosophy term paper, she became interested in playwriting. She has written five plays, one of which called Dial God, was produced and performed at Hunter.
In 2007, she attended her first comic book convention, Comic-Con International
Comic-Con International
San Diego Comic-Con International, also known as Comic-Con International: San Diego , and commonly known as Comic-Con or the San Diego Comic-Con, was founded as the Golden State Comic Book Convention and later the San Diego Comic Book Convention in 1970 by Shel Dorf and a group of San Diegans...
in San Diego, and Friends of Lulu
Friends of Lulu
Friends of Lulu was a non-profit, national charitable organization in the United States, founded in 1994 to promote readership of comic books by women and the participation of women in the comic book industry...
nominated her to their Hall of Fame. She still lives in Manhattan, near Madison Avenue.
In 2011, Lerner Publishing Group
Lerner Publishing Group
Lerner Publishing Group, based in Minneapolis in the U.S. state of Minnesota since its founding in 1959, is one of the largest independently owned children's book publishers in the United States. With more than 3,500 titles in print, Lerner Publishing Group offers nonfiction and fiction books for...
's Graphic Universe line released a graphic biography of Phillips for young readers entitled Lily Renée: Escape Artist, scripted by Robbins with art by Anne Timmons
Penciller
- Abbott and Costello [1948-1949]
- Cinderella Love (1954) #28
- "I Was A Campus Cutup"
- Diary Secrets (1952) #10 , 19, 30
- "Was I Too Young for Love?"
- "We Fought for Our Love"
- "Remodeled for Romance"
- Fight Comics (1940) #34-44, 47-51
- Senorita Rio [1944-1948]
- Jumbo Comics (1938) #154, 156, 160
- Kaänga Comics (1949) #9
- "Tabu" story
- Kitty (1948) #1
- Pictorial Romances (1950) #15
- "For Nurses Only"
- Planet ComicsPlanet ComicsPlanet Comics was a science fiction comic book title produced by Fiction House and ran for 73 issues from January 1940 to Winter 1953. Like many of Fiction House's early comics titles, Planet Comics was a spinoff of a pulp magazine, in this case Planet Stories, which featured space operatic tales...
(1940) #28-49, 68, 70- Lost World [1944-1947]
- Mysta of the Moon [1945]
- Norge Benson [1944]
- Rangers of Freedom/Ranger Comics (1941) #14-40
- The Werewolf Hunter [1943-1948]
- Teen-Age Diary Secrets (1949)
- "Dishonest Kisses Were My Downfall"
- Teen-Age Romances (1949) #1-2, 4
- "Was I Too Young for Love?" (reprint)
- "We Couldn't Be Kept Apart"
- "They Called Me a Love Thief"
- "I'll Not Date in August"
- Toyland Comics (1947) #2-3
- Fifi on the Farm [1947]
- Wings Comics (1940) #31-48
- Jane Martin [1943]
Reprints
- America's Greatest Comics (2002) #14
- "Senorita Rio" story from Fight Comics #50
- Good Girl ArtGood girl artGood girl art is found in drawings or paintings which feature a strong emphasis on attractive women no matter what the subject or situation. GGA was most commonly featured in comic books, pulp magazines and crime fiction...
Quarterly (1990) #5- "Senorita Rio" story from Fight Comics #35
- Rio Rita (1994) one-shot
- stories from Fight Comics (1940) #43, 47
- Romance Without Tears TPB (2003)
- "Was I Too Young for Love?"
- "We Couldn't Be Kept Apart"