Gerry Anderson Gerry Anderson Gerry Anderson (born Gerald Alexander Abrahams; 14 April 1929 – 26 December 2012) was an English television and film producer, director, writer and occasional voice artist. He remains famous for his futuristic television programmes, especially his 1960s productions filmed with "Supermarionation" (marionette puppets containing electric moving parts). Anderson's first television production was the 1957 Roberta Leigh children's series "The Adventures of Twizzle". "Supercar" (1961–62) and "Fireball XL5" (1962) followed later, both series breaking into the US television market in the early 1960s. In the mid-1960s Anderson produced his most successful series, "Thunderbirds". Other television productions of the 1960s
Gerry Anderson near the Poland–Russia border and settled in London; his name was changed to "Abrahams" by an immigration official upon his arrival in 1895. Anderson's Jewish mother Deborah changed the family name to "Anderson" in 1939. At the start of the Second World War, Gerry Anderson's elder brother, Lionel, volunteered for service in the Royal Air Force; he was stationed in the United States for advanced training. Lionel often wrote letters to his family, and in one letter described a US Army Air Forces air base called Thunderbird Field, the name of which stayed in his younger brother's memory. On 16