Robert Lebron was born in 1928 in New York City. At a young age he moved from New York to Puerto Rico with his fisherman cousin who told Lebron about the perils of the sea. Inspired by these tales, Lebron and his cousin would illustrate these stories on old paper bags. He returned to New York a few years later and at age 14 was admitted to New York City's High School of Music and Arts.

He studied for three years before he gave in to his youthful impatience and joined the United States Air Force, forging his parents' signatures in order to join under age. He soon started drawing cartoons for the camp newspaper and quickly graduated to the animation department of the Air Force's motion picture unit. It was here that he worked with sev...