Lenny Lipton, the New York-native who wrote the lyrics to what became Peter, Paul and Mary’s popular folk song “Puff, the Magic Dragon,”His wife said that he died from brain cancer on October 5th at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Los Angeles. The New York Times. He was 82.
Lipton was 19 years old and a Cornell University Physics major in 1959. Feeling inspired after reading Ogden Nash’s poem “The Tale of Custard the Dragon,” he borrowed the typewriter of his schoolmate Peter Yarrow — one-third of the Peter, Paul and Mary trio — to scribe a creation of his own. But when Yarrow saw Lipton’s poem abandoned at the keys, he decided to put it to music, becoming the well-known 1963 song “Puff, the Magic Dragon.”
Lipton was given a co-writer credit for the track. It became a huge hit among listeners. Lipton earned enough royalties through the track to be able to move to California’s Bay Area and join a diverse group of independent filmmakers. It was here he was launched into the film industry and began working on experimental shorts like 1969’s “Doggie Diner and the Return of Doggie Diner.”
Lipton was also a part of the studio system throughout his career. He received a credit as a production assistant on the 1975 Best Picture Winner. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Throughout the 70’s, Lipton wrote two books for independent filmmakers, the first titled “Independent Filmmaking”(1972) and second titled “The Super 9 Book” (1975). Writing wasn’t new for Lipton, seeing as he secured a job at Time magazine shortly after graduating in 1962, before moving to an editor position at Popular Photography. Lipton also continued to write columns for entertainment magazines in the years that followed. The compilation of his writings was eventually called “Lipton on Filmmaking”1979
Lipton was also at the helm of experimentation with three-dimensional technology for filmmakers — an interest that began in to his youth, when he would draw comics with red and green crayons to view with make-shift 3D glasses. Lipton was one of the first to see 3D films at theaters when he was a kid. Even though the early technology wasn’t perfect, Lipton was inspired to dedicate his life to the craft.
The creative multi-talented inventor held 68 patents in relation to 3D technology. CrystalEyes is an example of a pair glasses that have shutters that open and shut in time with the screen, to display imagery to the viewer. In 1996, the Smithsonian Institution awarded Lipton a medal for CrystalEyes invention.
These projects were developed by Stereographics Corporation. This was a company Lipton founded in 1980. RealD Cinema bought the corporation in 2005. RealD hired Lipton to be its chief technology officer until 2009. His work remains the inspiration for RealD’s modern cinema systems.
“I had a great education at Cornell but I was a decidedly mediocre student,”Lipton stated modestly in an interview with Physics World magazine, 2007. “I am a creative and determined person and I got a lot smarter once I found a field I loved. I see the world becoming one in which children are pointed in the direction of money as an end in itself. I hate living in that kind of a world. Schools need to be more accepting of eccentric people with a different point of view because we are the people who make the difference. We are the people who invent.”
Lipton is survived his wife Julie, as well as his children Jonah, Noah, and Anna.