Paul Rigby grew up in Sandringham, and served in the Royal Australian Air Force from 1942 to 1946. He went to Perth in 1948 intending to play in the West Australian tennis championships, but joined West Australian Newspapers as an illustrator. Rigby began illustrating Perth's Daily News in 1952, and other Australian papers including Sydney's Daily Mirror - his work gained him national prominence and won him five Walkley awards.
In 1969 he moved to London to cartoon for the Sun and News of the World, and in 1975 returned to Perth briefly before moving to New York in 1977 to work on the New York Post. From 1984 Rigby worked for the New York Daily News, until 1992 when he returned to the Post, cartooning there until his retirement in 2000. Rigby and his wife returned from the United States in 2003 to settle in the Margaret River region of Western Australia. In 1999, he became a member of the Order of Australia. Father of Bay and Peter Rigby (qq.v.).
