Manager: Fantasy artist Frank Frazetta dies in Fla. hospital at 82 after suffering stroke

Manager: Fantasy artist Frazetta, 82, dies in Fla.

PHILADELPHIA — Pioneering fantasy artist Frank Frazetta died Monday in a Fort Myers, Fla., hospital, a manager said. He was 82.

Frazetta had been out to dinner with his daughters Sunday but suffered a stroke at his Boca Grande home later that night and was taken to Lee Memorial Hospital, manager Rob Pistella said. A hospital spokeswoman confirmed the death, as did his daughter Heidi Frazetta Grabin.

“He’s going to be remembered as the most renowned fantasy illustrator of the 20th Century,” Pistella said.

Frazetta created covers and illustrations for more than 150 books and comic books, along with album covers, movie posters and original paintings. His illustrations of Conan the Barbarian, Tarzan, Vampirella and other characters influenced many later artists.

His children have fought over an estate estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars, filing lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Florida.

His son, Alfonso Frank Frazetta, 52, was charged in December with using a backhoe to break into the artist’s museum in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains and trying to remove 90 paintings insured for $20 million. The charges were dropped late last month after two days of mediation produced a truce.

“It is resolved, but there’s always new issues that can come out,” daughter Heidi Frazetta Grabin said.

Frazetta had a history of strokes, but appeared well and was still painting, she and Pistella said.

Grabin and her sister, Holly Frazetta Taylor, dined out with their father Sunday to celebrate Mother’s Day, then walked with him on Englewood Beach.

“We had a lovely time, and he just talked about how beautiful the sunset was, and how his next studio was going to have windows around it overlooking the Gulf,” Grabin said.

Alfonso Frank Frazetta did not return a message Monday.

A lawsuit he had filed in Florida alleged that his sisters and brother Billy were plotting to wrest control of the family business and fortune from him after their mother died in July 2009.