Frank Thomas

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Frank Thomas (1974)

Frank Thomas (actually Franklin Thomas; born September 5, 1912 in Santa Monica , California , † September 8, 2004 in La Cañada Flintridge , California) was an American animator . Thomas counted along with Ollie Johnston , with whom he had worked closely for decades, with the last two surviving members of Disney's Nine Old Men , a group of subscribers, since the mid-1930s, the artistic style of Disney - Cartoons and -Langfilme had coined.

biography

Frank Thomas was born in Santa Monica, California, but grew up in Fresno . At Fresno State College, which was run by his father, Thomas discovered his love for film when he was producing a short film for a school project. Frank Thomas first began studying art at Stanford University . There he met Ollie Johnston, with whom he worked as a cartoonist on the campus newspaper. Thomas and Johnston became close friends and graduated from the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles together.

In Los Angeles, Thomas met another Stanford graduate, James Algar , who was now an animator at Disney. Algar gave Thomas a job as an inbetweener at Walt Disney Studios , which he took up on September 24, 1934. Thomas' first work included the Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey's Elephant . After six months, Frank Thomas became a draftsman under Fred Moore , and he also managed to convince Ollie Johnston to work at Disney too.

Under Moore, Thomas was one of eight animators who drew the scenes of the dwarfs in Disney's first feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs . In Disney's second feature film Pinocchio , Thomas animated the musical number I've Got No Strings . Then worked with Milt Kahl on the design of the main characters of Disney's fifth feature film Bambi . In 1941 Thomas accompanied Walt Disney on a promotional tour through South America. The impressions of this trip were later processed in the episode films Saludos Amigos and Drei Caballeros . Shortly before Thomas was drafted into the United States Air Force in World War II , he worked on the propaganda film Education for Death .

After the war, Frank Thomas returned to Disney as chief draftsman. Thomas and Ollie Johnston first worked together as directing animators in the feature film The Adventures of Ichabod and Taddäus Toad , published in 1949 . Until their retirement in 1978, both were involved in all of the Disney animation studio's feature films. The team came to be known as "Frank and Ollie" by Disney employees and was jokingly named one of the studio's Nine Old Men by Walt Disney. Frank Thomas designed some of the most famous villains of the Disney films with the evil stepmother in Cinderella , the queen of hearts in Alice in Wonderland and Captain Hook in Peter Pan , but he was also responsible for the touching restaurant scene in Lady and the Tramp . Together with Ollie Johnston he animated the three good fairies in Sleeping Beauty , Pongo and Perdy in 101 Dalmatians , the dancing penguins in the animated sequence of Mary Poppins and some of the main characters in The Jungle Book and Bernard and Bianca - The Mouse Police . Frank and Ollie's last film was Cap and Capper when a new generation of cartoonists and studio managers finally took control of the Disney corporation.

Even after their careers at Disney ended, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas continued to work on joint projects. Together they wrote the book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation , published in 1981 , which is now considered the standard work on the techniques of classic animated film. Other book publications followed, including contributions to the Sketchbook Series about the making of individual Disney films.

In 1980 Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston received the Winsor McCay Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Annie Awards ceremony of the Asifa International Association of Animated Filmmakers . In 1989, the Walt Disney Company honored the Nine Old Men with the honorary title Disney Legends . In addition to these awards, Frank and Ollie were also honored by other filmmakers, animation filmmakers like John Lasseter named them as their role models and mentors. So the villain of the Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey Monster Maus (Runaway Brain) from 1995 “Dr. Frankenollie "called. In the same year Frank's son Theodore Thomas published the documentary Frank and Ollie . Director Brad Bird gave Johnston and Thomas guest roles in the 1999 cartoon The Giant from Outer Space and eventually had both appear as themselves in the computer animation film The Incredibles . Frank Thomas died, however, two months before The Incredibles was released .

Frank Thomas had been married to Jeanette Armentrout since 1946, and they had three other children in addition to Theodore. Frank Thomas was an avid musician; as a pianist, he was a member of the jazz band The Firehouse Five Plus Two , led by Disney animator Ward Kimball for several decades .

Filmography (selection)

Short films

Feature films

Works (with Ollie Johnston)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Animation World Network: Disney's ILLUSION OF LIFE tops best animation books poll of September 28, 1999.
  2. ↑ Variety : Frank Thomas  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Obituary) of September 9, 2004.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.variety.com  

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Thomas, Frank
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thomas, Franklin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American animator
DATE OF BIRTH September 5, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Santa Monica
DATE OF DEATH September 8, 2004
Place of death La Cañada Flintridge