Charles Saxon was born November 13, 1920, in Brooklyn. He studied drumming and worked in jazz bands while attending Columbia University, which he entered at the age of 15. Graduating while still in his teens, he subsequently worked as the last editor of Ballyhoo magazine, and then at the Dell Publishing Company before becoming a pilot in the Army Air Corps. After the war he returned to Dell as an editor whose avocation was free-lancing his own cartoons. He became a full-time cartoonist in 1955 and joined The New Yorker, creating 725 drawings and 92 covers. His drawings were used in advertising campaigns for American Airlines, Bankers Trust, Chivas Regal, I.B.M., Mobil Oil, United Airlines, Xerox and other companies.