Gerry Anderson -14th April 1929 - 26th December 2012.
Anderson ran a company making puppet shows for television. If that sounds a little unexciting for the over fives Gerry and his team re-imagined what TV puppets might be. Aided by wife Synthia Gerry's company with glossy production values, sophisticated sets and props, the characters moving lips and eyebrows and the convincing design of futuristic architecture and vehicles combined to make childrens shows that were original, creative and impressive It speaks to the technical quality of the programmes that the term Supermarionation became accepted as a reasonable term to apply to the programs. Gerry later claimed to have devised the term "as a joke".
The TV series' Supercar, Thunderbirds, Stingray, Fireball XL5 and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons were produced.and during the Sixties became hugely popular.
The comics industry, never knowingly allowing a bandwagon to pass unjumped-on, ran versions of the programs in TV Comic, TV Century 21, Lady Penelope, Tornado, Countdown, Joe 90 and TV Action.
Difficult to believe given his commitment to the marionettes it is reported that Gerry Anderson regarded puppets as merely his stepping stone to directing live action movies and he did make several feature films. There was also the live action TV series Space 1999.
Sources.
The Guardian
Wikipedia
BBC Radio 4
and
http://www.fanderson.org.uk/bios/gerryanderson.html