Pal was born in
Cegléd, Hungary, as Gyula György Marczincsak the son of Gyula Marczincsak, Sr. and his wife Mária Tikó; in 1936 he officially changed his last name Marczincsak to "
Pál", becoming György (George) Pál. He graduated from the
Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 1928 (aged 20). From 1928 to 1931, he made films for
Hunnia Film Studio of
Budapest, Hungary. In 30th June of 1930 in Budapest, he married Elisabeth "Zsóka" Grandjean, and after moving to Berlin, founded Trickfilm-Studio GmbH Pal und Wittke, with
UFA Studios as its main customer from 1931 to 1933. During this time, he patented the Pal-Doll technique (known as
Puppetoons in the US). In 1933, he worked in Prague. In 1934, he made cigarette advertisement films in his hotel room in Paris, and was invited by
Philips to make two more ad shorts. He started to use Pal-Doll techniques in
Eindhoven, in a former butchery, then at villa-studio Suny Home. He made five films before 1939 for the British company
Horlicks Malted Milk. In December of that year, aged 32, he emigrated from Europe to the United States, and began work for
Paramount Pictures. At this time, his friend
Walter Lantz helped him obtain American citizenship. As an animator, he made the
Puppetoons series in the 1940s, which led to him being awarded an
honorary Oscar in 1943 for "the development of novel methods and techniques in the production of short subjects known as Puppetoons". Pal then switched to live-action film-making with
The Great Rupert (1950). He is best remembered as the producer of several
science-fiction and
fantasy films in the 1950s and 1960s, such as
When Worlds Collide, four of which were collaborations with director
Byron Haskin, including
The War of the Worlds (1953). He himself directed
Tom Thumb (1958),
The Time Machine (1960), and
The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962). ==Death==