But he was in steadily increasing physical pain throughout his life, which may explain his evidently growing choler.Ĭapp (he shortened his name so that it would fit inside within the cartoon panel of “Li’l Abner”) never finished Bridgeport High School, but decided early on that he wanted to become a cartoon artist. He was always open about his injury, and after World War II even produced an autobiographical comic book intended for amputee veterans returning to civilian life. When he was nine, Alfred was pinned under a New Haven streetcar while on his way to a haircut, requiring the amputation of his left leg above the knee.
Late in his life, Capp told an interviewer that his parents’ fathers “had found that the great promise of America was true – it was no crime to be a Jew.” His father graduated Yale Law School but thereafter lacked regular employment, and Alfred and his siblings grew up impoverished.
