Charlie Brown was born in 1926 to Mattie Laughnan and Harry Joseph Brown. In 1947 he began working as an instructor of commercial art at the Minneapolis Arts Instruction School. It was there that Charlie Brown met Charles M. "Sparky" Schulz and others who would inspire characters in Schulz's Peanuts comic strip, such as Frieda Mae Rich and Linus Maurer. He later worked for the Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center where he eventually became the director. Charlie Brown died of cancer on December 5, 1983. The book Me and Charlie Brown was intended to be the first third of an autobiography by Charlie Brown, although subsequent volumes were never completed.
From the guide to the Charlie Brown autobiography files., 1910-1989., (Minnesota Historical Society)
