Ollie Johnston
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| Ollie Johnston | |
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| Born | Oliver Martin Johnston, Jr. October 31, 1912 Palo Alto, California |
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| Died | April 14, 2008 (aged 95) Sequim, Washington |
Oliver Martin Johnston, Jr. (October 31, 1912 – April 14, 2008) was an American motion picture animator. He was one of Disney's Nine Old Men, and the last living member. His work was recognized with the National Medal of Arts in 2005.
He was a directing animator at Walt Disney Studios from 1935 to 1978. He contributed to many films including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Bambi and Pinocchio. 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.
Johnston co-authored, with Frank Thomas, the reference book The Illusion of Life. 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.
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[edit] Personal life
Born in Palo Alto, California, Johnston attended Stanford University- where he worked on the campus humor magazine Stanford Chaparral with fellow future animator Frank Thomas - then went on to the University of California, Berkeley and Chouinard Art Institute.
Ollie married a fellow Disney employee, ink and paint artist Marie Worthey, in 1943. Marie Johnston died May 20, 2005.
Ollie's lifelong hobby was live steam trains. Starting in 1949, he built a 1" scale backyard railroad, with three 1/12th scale locomotives, 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 again inspired the building of the railroad in Disneyland.
In the 1960s Ollie acquired and restored a full-size narrow-gauge Porter steam locomotive, which he named the "Marie E." In 2005 it ran during a private night event on the Disneyland Railroad. This engine was sold to John Lasseter (of Pixar Studios fame). The engine is fully operational and ran recently at the Santa Margarita Ranch in May 2007.
Brad Bird paid a tribute to Ollie Johnston with an animated cameo of Johnston in the 2004 Pixar film The Incredibles [1], as well as a cameo in his 1999 film The Iron Giant, where he played a train engineer[2].
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.
Ollie Johnston died of natural causes on Monday, April 14, 2008 at the age of 95. [1][2][3] Johnston was the last surviving member of Disney's core group of senior animators known as the "nine old men." [4]
[edit] Other books
- Too Funny for Words: Disney's Greatest Sight Gags (ISBN 0-89659-747-4)
- Walt Disney's Bambi—the Story and the Film (ISBN 1-55670-160-8)
- The Disney Villain (ISBN 1-56282-792-8)
[edit] References
- ^ "Legendary Disney animator dies at 95", Associated Press in CNN. Retrieved on 2008-04-16.
- ^ "'Golden age' Disney animator dies", BBC, 2008-04-16. Retrieved on 2008-04-16.
- ^ "Ollie Johnston, last of Disney's elite animators, died on April 14th, aged 95.", The Economist. Retrieved on 2008-04-26.
- ^ Disney Animator Ollie Johnston Dies at 95, ARTINFO, April 18, 2007, <http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/27326/disney-animator-ollie-johnston-dies-at-95/>. Retrieved on 14 May 2008
[edit] External links
