Stan Lee

Stan Lee was born in 1922 in Manhattan, New York, US. Stan Lee's background is described as Romanian-Jewish immigrant parents. Growing up, the family was working class — his dress-cutter father was mostly unemployed through the Depression; the family of four shared a one-bedroom apartment. Hired at 16 to fill inkwells; at 38, told by his wife to finally write a comic he liked.

Born

1922 · Manhattan, New York, US

Roots

Romanian-Jewish immigrant parents

Family

Working class

His dress-cutter father was mostly unemployed through the Depression; the family of four shared a one-bedroom apartment.

Education

DeWitt Clinton High School; no college

Started with

An inkwell job

Office assistant at his cousin-in-law's Timely Comics — filling inkwells, fetching lunch, erasing pencil lines.

Affiliations & societies

None documented.

Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

1. 1939 · age 16
   Timely Comics

   The publisher's teenage gofer is interim editor within two years.

2. 1941 · age 18
   "Stan Lee" appears

   A pen name — Stanley Lieber was being saved for serious novels.

3. 1961 · age 38
   Fantastic Four

   Ready to quit, he takes his wife Joan's advice to write one book his own way; with Jack Kirby, it works.

4. 1962 · age 39
   Spider-Man

   The publisher objects that teenagers can't be heroes and spiders disgust people; it runs in a dying title's last issue and outsells everything.

5. 1972 · age 49
   Publisher

   Credit disputes with artists Kirby and Ditko shadow the legacy for decades.

6. 2008 · age 85
   The cameo era

   The Marvel films make his face known to a billion people; he dies in 2018.