Wednesday, September 5, 2007

One Of The Nine's Birthday...


And speaking of the "Nine Old Men"...

Frank Thomas was born today in Santa Monica, California in 1913. Shortly, he and his family will move up north where he will be raised in Fresno, California. After graduating from Stanford University(ok, so he's not perfect), Frank would study at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. While there he heard about a job opening at Walt Disney Studios...

He became employee number 224 and was assigned to work on the Mickey Mouse short: "Mickey's Elephant". Frank went on to work on almost 20 animated features including, "Pinocchio," "Peter Pan," "Sleeping Beauty," "Cinderella," "The Jungle Book," and "101 Dalmatians," as well as numerous shorts.

One of Frank's loves was playing piano with a group of fellow Disney artist called the "Firehouse Five Plus Two", a jazz band that included among others, Ward Kimball. Frank retired from Walt Disney Productions in 1978. He's led a very active life afterwards writing four books with best friend Ollie Johnson. Which in case you're too lazy to look up the titles are called: "Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life," "Too Funny For Words," "Walt Disney's Bambi: The Story and the Film," and "The Disney Villain." They even have an official website you can check out if you're interested.

1 comment:

Klark Kent 007 said...

I am so glad someone else has taken an interest in the Nine Old Men. I only recently became aware of them (in the past 5 years), but I have realized their impact ever since. The only downside is: as I have discovered them they were dissappearing.

As for Frank, Happy Birthday!
He passed on my birthday in 2004.