Ollie Johnston, the last of Disney's "Nine old Men," has died
Posted on Apr 15, 2008 9:13:47 AM
If you saw The Incredibles you caught a glimpse of animated versions of "Frank and Ollie." A nice little Disney (Pixar) tribute to Disney's past.
If you caught the wonderful documentary, Frank and Ollie, about Ollie Johnston's long friendship and professional collaboration with Frank Thomas, you know who I'm talking about.
But if you've ever seen a Disney cartoon, one of the classics, you've seen Ollie Johnston's work. He had a hand in everything from Snow White to The Fox and the Hound. He was famous for giving his characters warmth, human feeling, emotions. He all but invented that in cartoons.
Ollie Johnston was the last of Disney's "Nine Old Men," Walt's trusted cadre of animators that included Ward Kimball, Frank Thomas, Wolfgang Reitherman, Les Clark, Eric Larson, John Lounsbery, Milt Kahn and Marc Davis. And now he's gone. Oliver "OIllie" Johnston was 95.
He animated Thumper. That's really all you need to know. Thanks to Cartoonbrew for that image.
Ollie worked on Lady for Lady and the Tramp, supervised Baloo in The Jungle Book and animated on and influenced virtually every classic Disney cartoon from Snow White onward.
I chatted with him a few times over the years, often on sad occasions, such as the death of one of the other "nine old men." He was just delightful and a font of animation history, technique and knowledge. No wonder people like John Lasseter idolize him. Lasseter even bought one of Ollie's train engines (all of Walt's boys, pretty much, were into trains. As was Walt himself).
Ollie won a National Medal for the Arts in 2005, fitting considering both his contribution to the arts and his longevity. We became aware of the lasting influence of these guys partly due to Disney's lauding of them as "Nine Old Men," but also thanks to Frank, Ollie and Ward Kimball sticking around to remind us.
John Canemaker's fine book on these guys and how they invented animation as we know it (styles, how to draw anticipation, motion, "squash and stretch," the works) is still the definitive piece on them. I still keep it on my desk. But the many Walt bios of recent years point out how the Nine stuck with Walt through labor struggles, helped create his TV show and imagined the way
Disneyland and later Disney World would look.
Lasseter is one of the few people in the biz today who can claim a portion of Ollie's mantle, the warmth, the invention, the artistry. Brad Bird might be another (Ollie did a cameo in Bird's The Iron Giant. And Bird, of course, directed The Incredibles, which featured both Frank and Ollie). But Ollie was our last connection to a glorious age, of Bambi, Dumbo, Fantasia, "artists" animating films with their own hands. He will be missed.
