Curiosidades

Also a satirist, cartoonist and jazz saxophonist

For several decades, a prominent figure in the production of the fortnightly satirical magazine "Private Eye", he is also the author of several detective stories featuring a tough Philadelphia sleuth called Mike Dime. Fantoni had never been to Philadelphia when he began writing these stories.

Best known for his work with the satirical magazine, Fantoni was also a diary cartoonist for news publication the Times and produced caricatures for listings magazine Radio Times from the mid 1960s.

He had been a long-term stalwart of the Private Eye editorial team from 1963 until his retirement in 2010.

Was educated at the Archbishop Temple School in London.

In 2011 his archive of 3,500 original Times cartoons auctioned at Bonhams for £4,200.

Was a record reviewer for Punch magazine in the 1970s.

At the age of fourteen, he was awarded the Wedgewood Scholarship for the Arts and studied at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts from 1954 until 1958. There, he formed the school's first jazz group as well as a film society and pioneered a drama group before getting expelled.

Illustrated the sheet music for "Let's Go To San Francisco" by The Flowerpot Men.

Following his expulsion from the Camberwell School of Arts he moved to the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art and became a figure in the 1960s pop art movement.

Born in to an Italian father and a Jewish mother of French and Dutch extraction, both gifted musicians, and grew up in London's East End.