Charles Marks was professor of surgery at Louisiana State University, New Orleans. He was born in Kremenchug, Ukraine, the son of Abe Marks, a businessman, and Sonia Marks née Beck, a housewife. He migrated to South Africa, where he matriculated from Wynberg Boys’ High School in Cape Town in December 1939 with first class honours. He then studied medicine at the University of Cape Town, qualifying in 1945. He gained his FRCS in 1952. From 1953, he was a consultant surgeon in Salisbury, Rhodesia. In 1955, with two physicians, Michael Gelfand and Joseph Ritchken, he established the *Central Africa Medical Journal* and served on the editorial board until 1963, when he moved to the United States. He was an associate professor of surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and then in 1967 he became an associate clinical professor of surgery at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and director of the department of surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio. In 1971, he was appointed to his post at Louisiana State University School of Medicine. He was also chief of transplantation surgery at Charity and Hotel Dieu hospitals. In 1988, he returned Africa, to Zimbabwe, where he was a senior consultant in the Ministry of Health and director of the section of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery at Parirenyatwa Hospital, Harare. He was also chairman of the Zimbabwe Heart Foundation from 1989 to 1994. His last appointment was as medical executive director and director of medical education for the Florida Department of Corrections, a post he held from 1994 to 1998. At the Royal College of Surgeons, he was a Hunterian Professor in 1956 and gave a lecture on the surgical sequelae of bilharziasis. He wrote and edited several books on surgery, including *Applied surgical anatomy* (Springfield, Illinois, Charles C Thomas Publishers, 1972), *Surgical management of systemic hypertension* (Mount Kisco, New York, Futura Publishers, 1981), *Fundamentals of cardiac surgery* (London, Chapman and Hall Medical, 1993) and *Fundamentals of plastic surgery* (Philadelphia, W B Saunders, 1997). He also published a memoir *Threads of destiny: a surgeon’s odyssey* (Mustang, Oklahoma, Tate Publishing and Enterprises, LLC, 2007). He was an honorary member of the 1921 Surgical Club from 1983. In 1982, he received the Presidential Distinguished Medal of Merit from President Reagan. With his wife’s family, he established the Wernick-Marks endowment at the University of Zimbabwe Medical School for an annual lectureship. Outside medicine, he enjoyed boxing as a student and rugby, and was later interested in tennis, swimming, literature, golf and travelling. In December 1949, he married Joyce Wernick. They had four sons: Malcolm, a professor of plastic surgery in North Carolina; Peter, chief of cardio-thoracic surgery in Rockford, Illinois; Ian, a managing director; and Anthony, an investment and financial consultant. There are eight grandchildren and three great grandchildren. Charles Marks died on 10 May 2015. He was 93.