The Animation Freak. Disney's Nine Old Men.
The Animation Freak.
Disney's Nine Old Men.
The nine old men were the pioneers of animation.
Disney's Nine Old Men were Walt Disney Productions' core animators, some of whom later became directors, who created some of Disney's most famous animated cartoons, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) onward to The Rescuers (1977), and were referred to as such by Walt Disney himself. They worked in both short films and feature films. Disney delegated more and more tasks to them in the animation department in the early 1950s when their interests expanded and diversified their scope. Eric Larson was the last to retire from Disney, after his role as animation consultant on The Great Mouse Detective in 1986. All members of the group are now deceased, and are acknowledged as Disney Legends.
(November 17, 1907 – September 12, 1979), "The Mickey Mouse Master", who joined Disney in 1927. Although Clark started his career at Disney working on the Alice comedies' shorts, his specialty was animating Mickey Mouse as he was the only one of the Nine Old Men to work on that character from its origins with Ub Iwerks. Les did many scenes throughout the years, animating up until Lady and the Tramp. He moved into directing and made many animated featurettes and shorts, although since 1964 almost all the films in which Clark worked are short films.
Les started work at the studio first as a camera operator and doing ink and paint on the animations. He moved on to work under the guidance of Ub Iwerks. During the development of the character Mickey Mouse, Clark was promoted to the position of inbetweener where he worked on a scene for the upcoming Steamboat Willie. Les was then promoted to animator and was tasked to work on the Silly Symphony The Skeleton Dance. After Ub Iwerks left Disney, Clark was given the position as lead animator on Mickey Mouse. He continued honing his craft, attending art classes while working at the studio. As he improved, he was given the task of animating the Seven Dwarfs in the upcoming film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In particular, Clark worked on the scene where Snow White dances with each of the seven dwarfs. He would go on to animate the iconic Disney characters Pinocchio, Cinderella, Alice and Tinkerbell.
(March 30, 1913 – January 12, 2000) started in 1935 on Snow White, and later he went on to develop/animate the characters of Bambi and Thumper in Bambi, Tinker Bell (in Peter Pan), Maleficent, Aurora and the raven (in Sleeping Beauty), and Cruella de Vil (in One Hundred and One Dalmatians). From 1961 Davis restricted his duties to his work at Disneyland. Davis was responsible for character design for both the Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion attractions at Disneyland.
Marc Davis began his Disney career in 1935 as an animator on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and was responsible for many Disney characters, becoming so well regarded for his work on female characters that he was called "ladies' man"
As one of Walt Disney's "Nine Old Men," Marc Davis's importance to the Disney Studio is immediately evident. Davis was creative and skilled, able to set himself apart from the distinguished group of veteran animators. His mastery of drawing and painting led him to champion animation, followed by three-dimensional characters and storytelling. “I haven't used Marc as I should," Disney once admitted to Alice Davis: "I have a whole building over there filled with animators and that's all they can do. Marc can do story, he can do character, he can animate, he can design shows for me. All I have to do is tell him what I want and it's there. He's my Renaissance Man." An even higher compliment from Disney circled back to Davis over the years. When asked what piece of the Studio's animation he fancied most, Disney replied, "I guess it would have to be where Cinderella gets her ballroom gown." It was Davis who animated Cinderella's pixie dust transformation. Despite his skill with animal anatomy and caricature, Davis and Milt Kahl were stuck with over a decade of "difficult-to-draw" and "dull" human characters. In Davis's own words, "Milt got stuck with the prince a lot and I got stuck with the girls." Despite his distaste for this role, his commitment to artistic excellence never let him forget that he "still had to put personality into the characters. You had to believe the characters were alive, give a performance like an actor and make them come alive for the audience." Davis follows through on this commitment, as seen through his involved work with reference images, voice actors, and live actors. Davis became a master of observing and capturing life, "evident in his acting, posing, and movement."
Voice actors for Maleficent, Briar Rose, and Cruella De Vil have all discussed the influence on Davis's animation of their respective characters. Mary Costa, voice of Briar Rose, recalled not even being invited to the premier of Sleeping Beauty because, at the time, voice acting was hardly recognized. Even though Hollywood did not acknowledge voice acting's importance, Davis did. In an interview Costa described working with Davis at Disney: "Marc would sit in the sound booth and sketch my every gesture and expression." He recalled how despite hiring Helene Stanley as the live action reference for Briar Rose, it was her "mannerisms" that made it to the big screen. When her mother saw the film, she exclaimed: "Oh Mary, she looks just like you!" Eleanor Audley, voice of Maleficent, remembered Davis telling her that "the voice is the most necessary thing in the world." In the end, Davis admitted that Maleficent "looked a lot like Eleanor."When it came to Cruella, one of the only characters to ever be completely controlled by a single animator, Davis claimed his greatest inspiration was the vocal performance of Betty Lou Gerson. Gerson commented in an interview how Davis incorporated her high cheekbones into Cruella's face and how closely she had to work with him to perfect "the laugh."
Live action references also influenced Davis's work, though his distinct style still shone through, unlike many animators who just regurgitated reality. Davis's most famous scene from Sleeping Beauty is when Briar Rose spins around with her arms out in the forest. Though he followed the live-action reference footage, "Davis exaggerated the foreshortening and sweeping arcs of the arms," making an artistic choice, rather than one from reality, that made the princess look "more appealing." Fellow animator Frank Thomas criticized Davis for going "overboard" with Cruella De Vil, making the villain's face more "of a skull." However, Davis's skill in capturing personality made it so "her key poses and facial angles" retained a "certain glamor." Another example of this talent is how Davis perfectly captured and articulated Tinker Bell's notorious sass and personality through pantomime and facial expression alone. Margaret Kerry, the live action reference for the fairy, remembered asking Davis for guidance on who he wanted Tinker Bell to be and getting a response that she described as "wonderful." Davis told her he wanted "her to be you!" Davis had vision for the characters he animated beyond just what they looked like, he knew how they would behave, sound, move, and what they would wear. A clear example of Davis's forethought is with Briar Rose's dress. Davis instructed his wife, Alice, on how he wanted the princess's dress to flow so she could make the correct costume for when the live action model arrived.
Davis's contribution to Disney animation is undeniable. When asked how he would like to be remembered, he responded, "Well, I think as a really decent person and a pretty damn good artist." and that he was, one of the greatest ever.
(October 31, 1912 – April 14, 2008), who joined Disney in 1935, first worked on Snow White. He went on to author the animator's bible The Illusion of Life with Frank Thomas. His work includes Mr. Smee (in Peter Pan), the Stepsisters (in Cinderella), the District Attorney (in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad), and Prince John (in Robin Hood). According to the book The Disney Villain, written by Johnston and Frank Thomas, Johnston also partnered with Thomas on creating characters such as Ichabod Crane (in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad) and Sir Hiss (in Robin Hood).
Johnston was an animator at Walt Disney Studios from 1934 to 1978, and became a directing animator beginning with Pinocchio, released in 1940. He contributed to most Disney animated features, including Fantasia and Bambi. His last full work for Disney came with The Rescuers, in which he was caricatured as one of the film's characters, the cat Rufus. The last film he worked on was The Fox and the Hound. His work includes Mr. Smee (in Peter Pan), the Stepsisters (in Cinderella), the District Attorney (in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad), and Prince John (in Robin Hood). According to the book The Disney Villain, written by Johnston and Frank Thomas, Johnston also partnered with Thomas on creating characters such as Ichabod Crane (in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad), Sir Hiss (in Robin Hood), and story consultant in Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland.
Johnston co-authored, with Frank Thomas, the reference book Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, which contained the 12 basic principles of animation. This book helped preserve the knowledge of the techniques that were developed at the studio. The partnership of Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston is fondly presented in the documentary Frank and Ollie, produced by Thomas' son Theodore, who in 2012 also produced another documentary, Growing up with Nine Old Men, included in the Diamond Edition of the Peter Pan DVD.
Born in Palo Alto, California to Oliver, a Stanford professor, and Florence Johnston, Johnston had two older sisters, Winifred and Florence. Johnston attended Palo Alto High School and Stanford University, where he worked on the campus humor magazine Stanford Chaparral with fellow future animator Frank Thomas, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. Johnston then transferred to the Chouinard Art Institute in his senior year. Ollie married a fellow Disney employee, ink and paint artist Marie Worthey, in 1943. Marie Johnston died May 20, 2005 at the age of 87.
Ollie's lifelong hobby was live steam trains. Starting in 1949, he built the 43⁄4 in (121 mm) gauge La Cañada Valley Railroad, a miniature backyard railroad with three 1:12-scale locomotives at his home in Flintridge, California. The locomotives are now owned by his sons. This railroad was one of the inspirations for Walt Disney to build his own backyard railroad, the Carolwood Pacific Railroad, which inspired the building of the railroad in Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Ollie was a founding Governor of the Carolwood Pacific Historical Society along with his fellow Disney animator and railfan, Ward Kimball. The 1:4-scale Victorian depot from Ollie's backyard was restored and moved to a location near Walt Disney's Carolwood Barn within the Los Angeles Live Steamers Railroad Museum in Griffith Park, Los Angeles.
In the 1960s, Ollie acquired and restored a full-size, 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge Porter steam locomotive originally built in 1901, which he named the Marie E. He also built the Deer Lake Park & Julian Railroad (DLP&J) at his vacation estate in Julian, California in order to run the locomotive with a small gondola and caboose pulled behind it. The Marie E. first ran on the DLP&J in 1968. the DLP&J was 0.5 miles (0.80 km) long and utilized the railroad ties from the defunct Viewliner Train of Tomorrow attraction in Disneyland. Johnston sold the vacation estate and the narrow gauge train in 1993. The engine and its consist were later sold to John Lasseter (of Pixar Studios fame) around 2002. On May 10, 2005, it ran on the Disneyland Railroad during a private early morning event organized by Lasseter to honor Johnston, who was able to take the throttle of the Marie E. one last time. This was the first time that the Walt Disney Company permitted outside railroad equipment to run at any Disney Resort. The engine is still fully operational and presently runs on the Justi Creek Railway, located within the vineyards of Lasseter Family Winery, also owned by Lasseter.
In the 1980s and 90s, Johnston served on the advisory board of the National Student Film Institute and often was a presenter at the annual film festival's award ceremonies. Brad Bird paid a tribute to Ollie Johnston with an animated cameo of Johnston in the 2004 Pixar film The Incredibles, as well as a cameo in his 1999 film The Iron Giant, where Johnston played a train engineer. Both cameos also included Frank Thomas.
On November 10, 2005, Ollie Johnston was among the recipients of the prestigious National Medal of Arts, presented by President George W. Bush in an Oval Office ceremony.
The last surviving member of Disney's Nine Old Men, Ollie Johnston died of natural causes on April 14, 2008, at the age of 95.
(March 22, 1909 – April 19, 1987) started in 1934 working on Snow White. His work included heroes such as Pinocchio (in Pinocchio), Tigger (in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh), Peter Pan (in Peter Pan), and Slue-Foot Sue (in Melody Time) and villains such as Madam Mim (in The Sword in the Stone), Shere Khan (in The Jungle Book), Edgar the butler (in The Aristocats), the Sheriff of Nottingham (in Robin Hood), and Madame Medusa (in The Rescuers).
Kahl was born in San Francisco, California, to Erwin, a saloon bartender, and Grace Kahl. He had three younger sisters, Dorothy, Marion, and Gladys. He would often refine character sketches from Bill Peet, incorporating ideas of Ken Anderson. The final look of many characters in the Disney films was designed by Kahl, in his angular style inspired by Ronald Searle and Picasso. He is revered by contemporary masters of the form such as Andreas Deja, and also Brad Bird, who was his protégé at Disney in the early 1970s. In the behind-the-scenes feature "Fine Food and Film" shown on the Ratatouille DVD, Bird referred to Kahl as "tough," but in a gentle way, as he often gave Bird advice on where he could improve in animation whenever he came up short. Bird later repeated this in "The Giant's Dream" documentary on the Blu Ray for The Iron Giant.
In the book The Animator's Survival Kit, the author Richard Williams makes repeated references and anecdotes relating to Kahl, whom he befriended during his early years in the animation industry. The centenary of Kahl's birth was honored by the Academy on April 27, 2009, with a tribute entitled "Milt Kahl: The Animation Michelangelo" and featured Brad Bird as a panelist.
On April 19, 1987, Kahl died of pneumonia, aged 78, in Mill Valley, California
(March 4, 1914 – July 8, 2002) joined Disney in 1934 and retired in 1973. His work includes Jiminy Cricket (in Pinocchio), Lucifer, Jaq and Gus (in Cinderella), and the Mad Hatter and Cheshire Cat (in Alice in Wonderland). Specialized in drawing comic characters, his work was often more "wild" than the other Disney animators and was unique. In 1968 he created and released a non-Disney anti-Vietnam War animated short, Escalation.
While Kimball was a brilliant draftsman, he preferred to work on comical characters rather than realistic human designs. Animating came easily to him and he was constantly looking to do things differently. Because of this, Walt Disney called Ward a genius in the book The Story of Walt Disney. While there were many talented animators at Disney, Ward's efforts stand out as unique.
According to Jeff Lenburg's assessment of him, Kimball was a pioneer animator and a great innovator of his time. He instilled life to diverse Disney characters, such as Mickey Mouse, Jiminy Cricket, the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
Kimball attended the Santa Barbara School of the Arts in order to become a painter and illustrator. Kimball's instructor at the school suggested to him that his work should be submitted to Walt Disney Productions (later known as the Walt Disney Animation Studios), and that he should pursue a career in animation. In March 1934, a 20-year-old Kimball applied for a job at the Disney studio. In April 1934, he was hired as an inbetweener. He was then promoted to an assistant animator. He served as an assistant to animator Hamilton Luske. Kimball worked primarily in the Silly Symphony series, where his film credits include the animated short films The Wise Little Hen (1934), The Goddess of Spring (1934), and The Tortoise and the Hare (1935). He also worked on Mickey Mouse shorts, where his film credits include the short film Orphan's Benefit (1934).
In 1936, Kimball was promoted to an animator in his own right. He continued to work in the Silly Symphony series. Some of his memorable credits in this position include the animated short films Toby Tortoise Returns (1936), More Kittens (1936), and Mother Goose Goes Hollywood (1938). His first solo effort as an animator was animating a grasshopper turned musician in Woodland Café (1937).
As one of Disney's Nine Old Men, Kimball was tasked with animating on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). The film was the first feature-length animated film by the Disney studio. Kimball spent months working on the scene where the Seven Dwarfs are eating soup, prepared for them by Snow White. This scene, however, was ultimately cut to shorten the length of the film.
Following the release of Snow White, Kimball was promoted to a supervising or directing animator. He would remain in this position until his retirement in the 1970s. His employer Walt Disney was sufficiently satisfied with Kimball's work that he entrusted him with designing the new character Jiminy Cricket in the Disney Studio's next feature film, Pinocchio. It took Kimball 12 or 14 drafts before completing his final design of Jiminy. Kimball told one interviewer that he "hated" animating Jiminy Cricket: "I got sick of drawing that oval head looking in every direction.") Kimball's next major task was designing the sympathetic Crows in Dumbo (1941). Following the example of the Seven Dwarfs from Snow White, Kimball had to give each crow a distinct appearance and character.
Kimball supervised or directed the animation of several Disney animated feature films. Among them were Fantasia (1940), The Reluctant Dragon (1941), and The Three Caballeros (1944). The last film mentioned featured the trio of Donald Duck, José Carioca, and Panchito Pistoles. According to animation historian Jeff Lenburg, The Three Caballeros is considered to have a place among the finest work of Kimball's career. The film was reportedly successful in the American box office, earning about 3 to 4 million dollars.
Kimball directed the character animation and sequences of the Pecos Bill segment in Melody Time (1948). He also worked as a senior animator for The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). In Cinderella (1950), Kimball was responsible for the characters Jaq and Gus and Lucifer the Cat. In Alice in Wonderland (1951), Kimball was responsible for Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Walrus and the Carpenter, the Hatter and his mad tea party, and the Cheshire Cat. His other film credits include the feature films Peter Pan (1953), Mary Poppins (1964), and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971).
Kimball spent much of his career animating theatrical animated short films. However, he also served as a director for some of them. He and Charles August Nichols co-directed the animated short films Melody (1953) and Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (1953). Melody was the Disney studio's first animated 3D film; Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom won the 1954 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and was the Disney studio's first widescreen CinemaScope animated film. Kimball also directed the short films It's Tough to Be a Bird (1969) and Dad, Can I Borrow the Car? (1970). It's Tough to Be a Bird won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
Kimball served as a screenwriter for the featurette Eyes In Outer Space (1959). The film combined live action and animation. It depicted weather satellites and explained how the weather is predicted. The film was originally theatrically released. Around 1962, it started being shown in Disneyland.
During the 1950s, the Disney studio shifted its focus from theatrical animation to television. Kimball wrote and directed three hour-long television shows about space exploration. They were Man in Space (1955), Man and the Moon (1955), and Mars and Beyond (1957). The consultants for these shows included pioneers of the Space Age, such as aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun. According to animation historian Jeff Lenburg, the three shows helped in sparking popular interest in spaceflight. Kimball was also responsible for the science-fiction two-reel cartoon Cosmic Capers (1957).
Kimball also worked (as a writer) on the live-action film Babes in Toyland (1961), a musical film. He later returned to television and directed 43 episodes of The Mouse Factory (1972–1973).
According to Jeff Lenburg, Kimball retired in 1973 and left the Disney studio. He continued, however, to serve as a consultant on special assignments. He worked on the World of Motion attraction for Disney's EPCOT Center.
Kimball was profiled by producer Jerry Fairbanks in his Paramount Pictures film short series Unusual Occupations. This 35mm Magnacolor film short was released theatrically in 1944; it focused on Kimball's backyard railroad and full-sized locomotive.
Kimball was also a jazz trombonist. He founded and led the seven-piece Dixieland band Firehouse Five Plus Two, in which he played trombone. The band made at least 13 LP records and toured clubs, college campuses and jazz festivals from the 1940s to early 1970s. Kimball once said that Walt Disney permitted the second career as long as it did not interfere with his animation work. Kimball appeared on the March 17, 1954, episode of You Bet Your Life, where Groucho Marx coaxed him into playing his trombone with the house band. He and his partner won $75 in their quiz portion of the show, including one Disney animation question that Kimball answered easily.
Kimball continued to work at Disney until 1974, working on the Disney anthology television series, being one of the writers for Babes in Toyland, creating animation for Mary Poppins, directing the animation for Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and working on titles for feature films such as The Adventures Of Bullwhip Griffin and Million Dollar Duck. His last staff work for Disney was producing and directing the Disney TV show The Mouse Factory, which ran from 1972 to 1974. He continued to do various projects on his own, even returning to do some publicity tours for the Disney corporation. He also worked on the World of Motion attraction for Disney's EPCOT Center.
Kimball also produced two editions of a volume titled Art Afterpieces, in which he revised various well-known works of art, such as putting Mona Lisa's hair up in curlers, showing Whistler's Mother watching TV, and adding a Communist flag and Russian boots to Pinkie. These masterpiece remixes are thought to have been appropriated by the street artist Banksy.
His three acting appearances on film were an uncredited role as a jazz musician (with his Firehouse Five Plus Two) in Hit Parade of 1951, an IRS Chief in Mike Jittlov's The Wizard of Speed and Time, and voicing and giving his likeness to half of the vaudeville duo "Ward and Fred" in the Mickey Mouse short The Nifty Nineties (with fellow Disney animator Fred Moore). Kimball served as host of the "Man in Space" and "Man and the Moon" episodes of Disneyland in 1955 and 1956 respectively. He hosted the second season of the 1992 PBS series Tracks Ahead. That season has since been repackaged to feature current host Spencer Christian.
As recounted in Neal Gabler's biography of Walt Disney, Ward Kimball was a key figure in spreading the urban legend that Disney had left instructions for his body to be preserved by cryonics after his death.
Amid Amidi wrote a biography of Kimball, Full Steam Ahead: The Life and Art of Ward Kimball that was projected for publication in the fall of 2012. However, publication of the biography was canceled in February 2013, which Amidi believed was due to pressure from the Disney corporation.
(September 3, 1905 – October 25, 1988) joined in 1933. One of the top animators at Disney, he animated notable characters such as Peg in Lady and the Tramp; the Vultures in The Jungle Book; Peter Pan's flight over London to Neverland (in Peter Pan); and Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear (in Song of the South). Because of Larson's demeanor and ability to train new talent, Larson was given the task to spot and train new animators at Disney in the 1970s. Many of the top talents at Disney in later years were trained by Eric in the 1970s and 1980s.
Larson was married to Gertrude Larson. By his retirement in 1986, he was the longest-working employee at Disney, having worked there for 53 years. He died on October 25, 1988, at the age of 83.
(March 9, 1911 – February 13, 1976) started in 1935 and, working under Norm "Fergy" Ferguson, quickly became a star animator. Lounsbery, affectionately known as "Louns" by his fellow animators, was an incredibly strong draftsman who inspired many animators over the years. His animation was noted for its squashy, stretchy feel. Lounsbery animated J. Worthington Foulfellow and Gideon in Pinocchio; Ben Ali Gator in Fantasia; George Darling in Peter Pan; Tony, Joe, and some of the dogs in Lady and the Tramp; Kings Stefan and Hubert in Sleeping Beauty; The Elephants in The Jungle Book; and many others. In the 1970s, Louns was promoted to Director and co-directed Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too and his last film, The Rescuers.
He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and raised in Colorado. He attended East Denver High School and the Art Institute of Denver. While attending the ArtCenter College of Design in Los Angeles, an instructor sent him to interview with Walt Disney.
Lounsbery was hired by Disney on July 2, 1935, beginning as an assistant animator on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). He went on to work on numerous short features in the 1940s while continuing to serve as part of the animating team on nearly all of Disney's most famous feature-length animated films. In the 1970s, he was promoted to director and directed the short film Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974) and The Rescuers (1977).
Lounsbery died on February 13, 1976. At the time of his death, he was working on The Rescuers and still directing at the Walt Disney Studios. He was named a Disney Legend in 1989 and was buried at the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.
(June 26, 1909 – May 22, 1985) joined Disney in 1933 as an animator. In the late 1950s, Reitherman was promoted to director. He produced all the animated Disney films after Walt's death until his retirement. He also directed a sequence in Sleeping Beauty which featured Prince Phillip's escape from Maleficent's castle and his eventual battle against her as a terrible fire-breathing dragon. Some of his work includes Monstro (in Pinocchio), The Headless Horseman (in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad), the Crocodile (in Peter Pan), and the Rat (in Lady and the Tramp).
Wolfgang Reitherman (June 26, 1909 – May 22, 1985), also known and sometimes credited as Woolie Reitherman, was a German-American animator, director and producer who was one of the Nine Old Men of core animators at Walt Disney Productions. Reitherman emerged as a key figure at Disney during the 1960s and 1970s, a transitionary period which saw the death of Walt Disney in 1966, with him serving as director and/or producer on eight consecutive Disney animated feature films from One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) through The Fox and the Hound (1981).
While studying at Chouinard Art Institute, Reitherman's paintings had attracted the attention of Philip L. Dike, a drawing and painting instructor. Impressed with his artwork, Dike showed them to Disney, in which Reitherman was invited to the studio. Reitherman initially wanted to work as a watercolorist, but Walt Disney suggested he should be an animator. Reitherman was hired at Walt Disney Productions on May 21, 1933, and his first project was working as an animator on the Silly Symphonies cartoon, Funny Little Bunnies. Reitherman continued to work on a number of Disney shorts, including The Band Concert, Music Land, and Elmer Elephant. He animated the Slave in the Magic Mirror in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). His next assignments was animating Monstro in Pinocchio (1940), the climactic dinosaur fight in Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" sequence in Fantasia (1940), and several scenes of Timothy Q. Mouse in Dumbo (1941).
By 1942, Reitherman had left the Disney studios to serve in World War II for the United States Army Air Forces, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross after serving in Africa, China, India, and the South Pacific. He was discharged in February 1946 having earned the rank of Major. Reitherman rejoined the studio in April 1947, where he animated the Headless Horseman chase in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" section in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949).
Around this same time, he had claimed he was instrumental in helping Walt Disney commit to producing Cinderella (1950). Upon looking at rough storyboards, Reitherman recalled, "I just went in his office, which I rarely did, and I said, 'Gee, that looks great. We ought to do it.' It might have been a little nudge to say, 'Hey, let's get going again and let's do a feature'." On Cinderella, he was the directing animator of the sequence in which Jaq and Gus laboriously push and pull the key up the stairs to Cinderella. On Alice in Wonderland (1951), he animated the scene in which the White Rabbit's home is destroyed by an enlarged Alice. On Peter Pan (1953), he animated the scene of Captain Hook attempting to escape the crocodile. For Lady and the Tramp (1955), Reitherman animated the alley dog fight sequence and Tramp's fight with the rat in the nursery room.
While directing The Jungle Book, Reitherman followed the procedure to keep production costs low, in which he recalled Disney advising him to "keep the costs down because [feature cartoons are] going to price themselves out of business. So with that piece of advice, and with the way he pointed to Jungle Book into entertainment and character development rather than complicated stories that needed a lot of production qualities, he set the course for ten years after his death." During his tenure, he frequently used "recycled" or limited animation from prior works, presumably because it was a safer method for a quality product, though it was in fact more labor-intensive, not because it was supposedly cheaper. Reitherman's use of recycling animation proved to be controversial within the studio as animator Milt Kahl lamented its use stating "I detest the use of—it just breaks my heart to see animation from Snow White used in The Rescuers. It kills me, and it just embarrasses me to tears." Note this is similar to, but not the same as, rotoscoping.
Following The Rescuers, he was initially slated to direct The Fox and the Hound (1981), but following creative conflicts with co-director Art Stevens, he was taken off the project. Reitherman later moved on to several undeveloped animation projects such as Catfish Bend based on the book series by Ben Lucien Burman, and Musicana, a follow-up project to Fantasia in which he co-developed with artist Mel Shaw. In 1980, he developed an adaptation of the children's novel The Little Broomstick by Mary Stewart, but work was discontinued due to the studio's desire for ambitious films such as The Black Cauldron (1985). In the following year, he retired.
On May 22, 1985, Reitherman died in a single-car accident near his Burbank, California home, aged 75. Reitherman was posthumously named a Disney Legend in 1989.
(September 5, 1912 – September 8, 2004) joined Disney in 1934. He went on to author the animator's bible The Illusion of Life with Ollie Johnston. His work included the wicked Stepmother (in Cinderella), the Queen of Hearts (in Alice in Wonderland), and Captain Hook (in Peter Pan). Frank also was responsible for the iconic spaghetti scene in Lady and the Tramp.
In 2012, Frank Thomas' son, Theodore Thomas, produced a documentary featuring the children of the animators remembering their fathers, Growing up with Nine Old Men (included in the Diamond edition of the Peter Pan DVD.
Franklin Rosborough Thomas (September 5, 1912 – September 8, 2004) was an American animator and pianist. He was one of Walt Disney's leading team of animators known as the Nine Old Men.
Thomas was born in Santa Monica, California to Frank Thomas, a teacher, and Ina Gregg. He had two older brothers, Lawrence and Welburne. He grew up in Fresno. Frank Thomas attended Stanford University, where he was a member of Theta Delta Chi fraternity and worked on campus humor magazine The Stanford Chaparral with Ollie Johnston. After graduating from Stanford in 1933, he attended Chouinard Art Institute, then joined The Walt Disney Company on September 24, 1934, as employee number 224. There he animated dozens of feature films and shorts, and also was a member of the Dixieland band Firehouse Five Plus Two, playing the piano.
His work in animated cartoon shorts included Brave Little Tailor, in which he animated scenes of Mickey Mouse and the king, Mickey and the bear in The Pointer, and German dialogue scenes in the World War II propaganda short Education for Death (shortly before Thomas enlisted in the Army Air Forces). During World War II he was assigned to the First Motion Picture Unit where he made training films.
In feature films, among the characters and scenes Thomas animated were the dwarfs crying over Snow White's "dead" body, Pinocchio singing at the marionette theatre, Bambi and Thumper on the ice, Lady and the Tramp eating spaghetti, the three fairies in Sleeping Beauty, Merlin and Arthur as squirrels and the "wizard's duel" between Merlin and Madam Mim in The Sword in the Stone (in which he was paired with animator Milt Kahl to great effect), King Louie in The Jungle Book (the song number "I Wan'na Be Like You" featuring King Louie and Baloo the Bear re-teamed him with Kahl), the dancing penguins in Mary Poppins, and Winnie The Pooh and Piglet in Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too. Thomas was directing animator for several memorable villains, including the evil stepmother Lady Tremaine in Cinderella, the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, Captain James Hook in Peter Pan, and story consultant in Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland. He retired from Disney on January 31, 1978. In the 1980s and 1990s, Thomas served on the advisory board of the National Student Film Institute and often was a presenter at the annual film festival's award ceremonies.
Thomas co-authored, with fellow Disney legend Ollie Johnston, the comprehensive book Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, first published by Abbeville Press in 1981. Regarded as the definitive resource book on traditional hand-drawn character animation (particularly in the Disney style), the book has been republished numerous times, and is widely considered "the bible" among character animators. The book summarized the Disney approach to animation through the so-called 12 basic principles of animation.
Thomas and Johnston were also profiled in the 1995 documentary Frank and Ollie, which screened at the 20th Toronto International Film Festival, directed by Thomas's son Theodore Thomas. The film profiled their careers, private lives, and the personal friendship between the two men. In 2012, Theodore Thomas also directed another short documentary, "Growing up with Nine Old Men", included in the Diamond edition of Disney's Peter Pan DVD.
Thomas's last work in an animated film before his death was for The Incredibles (directed by Brad Bird), although he voiced a character, rather than animating one. Frank and his friend and colleague Ollie Johnston voiced and were caricatured as two old men saying "That's old school ." "Yeah, no school like the old school." The pair had previously been heard, and caricatured, as the two train engineers in Bird's The Iron Giant. Thomas died in La Cañada Flintridge, California on September 8, 2004, three days after his 92nd birthday. His widow, Jeanette A. Thomas, died on September 29, 2012.
The 2001 biography Walt Disney's Nine Old Men & The Art of Animation by John Canemaker chronicles Thomas' life.
On the Animation Podcast, Disney director John Musker discussed Frank Thomas, and mentioned that at one time, fellow animation great Chuck Jones had christened Thomas the "Laurence Olivier of animators."
In 1981, after retiring, Johnston and Thomas published the book Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, which sets out the 12 basic principles of animation and helps to preserve the animation techniques that the Disney company created.
Another important component of the Nine Old Men's legacy are the many animators in the contemporary animation industry who can directly or indirectly trace their training to someone who was either their apprentice at Disney Animation or their student at CalArts. For example, Wayne Unten, the supervising animator for Elsa in Disney's Frozen, has noted that he apprenticed with John Ripa, who in turn apprenticed with Glen Keane, who in turn apprenticed with Johnston.
According to Frank Thomas, they formed a board that studied all the possible problems affecting the company in relation to its works, but the number of members varied regularly. One day, when Walt Disney learned that there were nine people on the board at the time, he named the group "Nine Old Men". Walt Disney was jokingly referring to the then-famous 1936 bestselling book The Nine Old Men written by Robert S. Allen and Drew Pearson about the nine justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, most of whom were over the age of 70 at the time; meanwhile, the Disney nine were all in their thirty. (In turn, the U.S. Supreme Court was targeted as dominated by very old men by the proposed Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, whose enactment was allegedly averted by the switch in time that saved nine.) According to investigator Neal Gabler, the board was created between 1945 and 1947 as part of the reorganization that the study had to reduce company expenses.
I am going to add Joe Grant to this list as one of if not the best writer that Disney had at the time.
Joe Grant
Born in New York City, Grant worked for Walt Disney Animation Studios as a character designer and story artist beginning in 1932 on the Mickey Mouse short, Parade Of The Nominees (a cartoon never theatrically released but instead made for the Academy Awards) . He designed Queen Grimhilde in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He led the development of Pinocchio and co-wrote Fantasia, Dumbo and Saludos Amigos. During World War II, Grant worked on war cartoons including the Oscar-winning Der Fuehrer's Face.
Grant was Jewish, and rigorously denied rumors that Walt Disney was anti-Semitic, claiming, "As far as I'm concerned, there was no evidence of anti-Semitism...I think the whole idea should be put to rest and buried deep. He was not anti-Semitic. Some of the most influential people at the Studio were Jewish. It's much ado about nothing. I never once had a problem with him in that way. That myth should be laid to rest."
Lady, the protagonist from Lady and the Tramp, was based on a pet English Springer Spaniel of the same name kept by Grant; in a 2005 documentary on the making of the film, Grant's daughter noted that Walt Disney thought the dog's long fur looked like a dress and suggested creating a storyboard featuring his dog.
Grant left the Disney studio in 1949 and ran a ceramics business and a greeting card business, but returned in 1989 to work on Beauty and the Beast. He also worked on Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Mulan, Fantasia 2000, and Pixar's Monsters, Inc. among others. Grant was also specially mentioned in the credits of Monsters, Inc. The last two films he worked on before his death, Chicken Little and Pixar's Up, were dedicated to him.
Grant worked four days a week at Disney until his death.
He was a recipient of the Disney legend award.
Art Babbitt
Art Babbitt began his career in New York City working for Paul Terry's Terrytoons Studio. But in the early 1930s he moved to Los Angeles followed by his fellow Terrytoon colleague Bill Tytla, and secured a job animating for the Walt Disney Studio, which was expanding at the time.
Babbitt began his career at Disney as an assistant animator, but his talent was spotted and he was soon promoted to animator. His first important work was a drunken mouse in the short The Country Cousin (1936), which won an Academy Award for the studio.
At the Disney Studio, Babbitt animated the Wicked Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a job described by Disney animator Andreas Deja as "one of the toughest assignments" on the film. While he was working on Snow White, he met his first wife, Marjorie Belcher, a dance model whose live-action performance was used as reference material by the animators for the role of Snow White.
On the film Pinocchio, Babbitt animated the character of Geppetto, and became a directing animator. Of all Disney's films, Pinocchio was the feature which Babbitt most admired, and which he regarded as the finest achievement of the studio during the "Golden Age" of animation. Babbitt also animated the characters of the Dancing Mushrooms, Dancing Thistles, Dancing Orchids, Zeus, Vulcan, and Boreas in Fantasia. On the feature film Dumbo, Babbitt was again made a directing animator, and animated the character of the stork. When animating the stork, he made him resemble his voice actor, Sterling Holloway. Babbitt is also credited with developing the character of Goofy, a character which he later described in the 1987 documentary film "Animating Art":
During the 1930s Babbitt rose to become one of Disney's best-paid artists, and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle despite the austerity of the Great Depression:
Despite being one of the highest paid animators at Disney, Babbitt was sympathetic to the cause of lower echelon Disney artists seeking to form a union. Most of the strikers were in-betweeners, cel painters, and other less-well paid employees, who in 1941 began industrial action in pursuit of better working conditions. As a top animator, Babbitt was one of relatively few well-paid artists to join the strike, and he became one of the strike leaders. One morning, as Disney drove through picketing workers on his way to the studio, Babbitt heckled him through a bullhorn. Disney exited his car to confront him, and a fistfight was only prevented by the intervention of others.
For his part in the strike, Babbitt earned Walt Disney's enmity. Disney was forced to re-hire Babbitt after the strike was over, along with many other strikers, but by then the two men disliked one another. Babbitt worked with director Jack Kinney, another "Goofy man" (meaning that they worked together on the Goofy shorts), as Disney began to look for ways to be rid of Babbitt. "If he gets in your way, let me know", Disney said to Kinney. Babbitt was fired more than once but was re-instated, taking his case successfully all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, and winning a handsome settlement.
Along with some other former Disney strikers, Babbitt left Disney and went to join the United Productions of America (UPA), a new studio which pioneered a modern, simplified form of animation. He worked on many of their famous award-winning shorts, including the lead character Frankie in "Rooty Toot-Toot" (1951), and won many awards. In the 1950s he was part owner of Quartet Films, where he worked on television commercials, including the Cleo winning "John & Marsha" spot for Parkay Margarine. Later he was part of Hanna-Barbera's commercial wing.
Known in the animation world as one of the art's most accomplished teachers, in 1973 Canadian animator Richard Williams brought Babbitt to his London studio in Soho Square to deliver a series of lectures on animation acting and technique that subsequently became famous among animators. Some of Babbitt's final work was on the characters King Nod and Phido, the vulture, in Williams' film The Thief and the Cobbler. He also animated the Camel with Wrinkled Knees in William's Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure.
In 1991 Disney Company chief Roy E. Disney, the nephew of Walt, contacted Babbitt and they ended the long feud. Babbitt's former rivals, the pro-Walt animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, gave Babbitt a warm and moving eulogy at his funeral service.
His first wife (1937–1940) was Marge Champion, a dance model in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. His second wife was Dina Babbitt, an artist and a Holocaust survivor. He had two daughters with Dina, L. Michele Babbitt and Karin Wendy Babbitt. His third wife until his death was actress Barbara Perry. His step-daughter from Barbara is Laurel James. Babbitt died of kidney failure on March 4, 1992. In the late 1980s, a British television documentary titled Animating Art was broadcast, celebrating Babbitt's life and work. The documentary was produced and directed by Imogen Sutton (Richard Williams' wife), and features extensive interviews with Babbitt and his then employer, Williams. Babbitt was posthumously named a Disney Legend in 2007.
The Academy Film Archive holds a small collection of personal films belonging to Babbitt. The archive has preserved a number of Babbitt's home movies from this collection, including one of the 1938 Academy Awards.
The nine were all hired by Disney in the 1920s and 1930s, working initially on Disney's shorter productions, and later on theatrical projects. All nine were present by the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). According to researcher Neal Gabler and animator Frank Thomas, a board was formed to study all possible problems affecting the company in relation to its work between 1945 and 1947. One day in the early 1950s, Disney named the nine members on the board "Nine Old Men". Disney delegated more and more tasks to them in the field of animation as the work of the company diversified. As well as being honored as Disney Legends in 1989, all of the Nine Old Men were separately honored with the Winsor McCay Award (the lifetime achievement award for animators) during the 1970s and 1980s.
They began to retire one by one from the 1970s, with Eric Larson's 1986 animation consultancy for The Great Mouse Detective being the group's last animation work at Disney. Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in particular continued on outside of Disney for some time, and were credited on several films in the 1980s and 1990s, including The Chipmunk Adventure (1987), Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1992) and The Iron Giant (1999). A documentary which interviewed the duo, entitled Frank and Ollie was released by Disney in 1995. They were honoured with a final voiced cameo in The Incredibles in 2004, which was produced by Disney but animated by a then-independant Pixar. Ollie Johnston, the last surviving member of the group, died in 2008.
As part of their work for Disney, the Nine Old Men refined the 12 basic principles of animation:
- Squash and stretch
- Anticipation
- Staging
- Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose
- Follow Through and Overlapping Action
- Slow In and Slow Out
- Arcs
- Secondary Action
- Timing
- Exaggeration
- Solid Drawing
- Appeal
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