Paul Julian (1914 - 1995)

Paul Hull Husted (June 25, 1914 – September 5, 1995), better known as Paul Julian, was an American artist and animator, most noted for his work with Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes short films. He worked primarily on director Friz Freleng’s Sylvester and Tweety Bird shorts. His warm and tightly-cropped urban scenes were also featured early […]

Milt Franklyn (1897 - 1962)

Milt Franklyn moved from New York to Salt Lake City at the age of three, where he went to high school and finished one year at the University of Utah. He was the state junior tennis champion in Utah for six years. The next two years were spent at the University of California, Berkeley, then […]

Edward Selzer (1893 - 1970)

Edward “Eddie” Selzer (January 12, 1893 – February 22, 1970) was an American cartoon producer and head of Warner Bros. Cartoons from 1944 to 1958. He served in the US Navy and fought as a Golden Gloves boxer. He won a boxing exhibition for the Navy and was awarded with a weekend pass. While out […]

Carl Stalling (1891 - 1972)

Carl Stalling was born to Ernest and Sophia C. Stalling. His parents were from Germany; his father arrived in the United States in 1883. The family settled in Lexington, Missouri where his father was a carpenter. He started playing piano at six. By the age of 12, he was the principal piano accompanist in his […]

Michael Maltese (1908 - 1981)

In 1941, Michael Maltese was hired by Leon Schlesinger Productions, which three years later became Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. (Maltese had actually appeared on camera in the 1940 Porky Pig cartoon You Ought to Be in Pictures as a live-action guard at the Warner Bros. entrance gate, who winds up chasing the animated Porky around […]

Fred Quimby (1886 - 1965)

Frederick Clinton “Fred” Quimby (July 31, 1886 – September 16, 1965) was an American cartoon producer, best known as producing Tom and Jerry cartoons, for which he won seven Academy Awards. He was the film sales executive in charge of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio, which included Tex Avery, as well as William Hanna and Joseph […]

Marlin Perkins (1905 - 1986)

Marlin Perkins was born on March 28, 1905, in Carthage, Missouri, the youngest of three sons of Joseph Dudley Perkins and Mynta Mae (née Miller) Perkins. When he was 7 years old, his mother nursed him through a serious bout of pneumonia and sadly died of the illness herself. His grieving father sent his two […]

George Sidney (1916 - 2002)

George Sidney (October 4, 1916 – May 5, 2002) was an American film director and film producer who worked primarily at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Born in Long Island City, New York, Sidney began his career as an assistant at MGM until being assigned to direct the Our Gang comedies, which MGM had just acquired from Hal Roach, in […]

Carol Haney (1924 - 1964)

Born Carolyn Haney in New Bedford, Massachusetts, she began to dance at age five and opened a dancing school in her teens. After high school, Haney left her home town for Hollywood and landed bit parts in movies until she was spotted by dancer/choreographer Jack Cole, becoming his dance partner and assistant from 1946–48. In […]

Jay Velie (1892 - 1982)

Jay Velie was born in Denver, Colorado, on 16 May 1892. He became an actor and singer, first appearing on stage in 1912. His career on Broadway lasted for over fifty 50 years. Often he appeared with his sister, Janet. Velie’s first Broadway lead was in Little Jesse James (1923–24). Little Jessie James was written by […]

Lily Pons (1898 - 1976)

Lily Pons successfully made her operatic debut in the title role of Léo Delibes’ Lakmé at Mulhouse in 1928 and went on to sing several coloratura roles in French provincial opera houses. She was discovered by the dramatic tenor/impresario Giovanni Zenatello, who took her to New York where she auditioned for Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the general […]

Charles Eyton (1871 - 1941)

Charles Eyton was the son of Henry and Eleanor Eyton. His sisters were singer/actress Vera (Veronica) Doria and writer Alice Eyton, who died of burns in 1929 after her masquerade costume was accidentally set alight. In 1900 Charles Eyton married Anna S. Cole. They were divorced in May 1901. On 3 September 1908, Charles Eyton married actress […]

Lee Patterson (1929 - 2007)

Lee Patterson was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. His birth name: Beverley Frank Atherly Patterson. After attending Ontario College of Art, Patterson moved to Britain, where he specialised in playing virile American types in British films. He appeared in a number of films during the 1950s and 1960s, including The Good Die Young (1954), Above […]

Van Williams (1934 - 2016)

Van Williams was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the son of Priscilla Anne (Jarvis) and Bernard Cardwell Williams. He grew up on a ranch outside Fort Worth and later studied animal husbandry and business at Texas Christian University. He moved to Hawaii in 1956 after differences with his father on how the ranch should be […]

William Dozier (1908 - 1991)

William Dozier (February 13, 1908 – April 23, 1991) was an American film and television producer and actor. Dozier was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He began in the film industry. With Joan Fontaine he co-founded Rampart Productions, responsible for Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948). He is best remembered as the executive producer and narrator of the Batman […]

Mike Ilitch (1929 - 2017)

Mike Ilitch was born in Detroit in 1929 to Macedonian immigrants Sotir and Sultana Ilitch. His father was a tool-and-die maker. A graduate of Cooley High School in Detroit, Michigan, Ilitch entered the U.S. Marine Corps for four years. After his return home to Detroit, the Detroit Tigers offered him $3,000 if he would sign to play […]

Bill Thompson (1913 - 1971)

Born to vaudevillian parents, Bill Thompson began his career in Chicago radio, where his early appearances included appearances as a regular on Don McNeill’s morning variety series The Breakfast Club in 1934 and a stint as a choir member on the musical variety series The Sinclair Weiner Minstrels around 1937. While on the former series, […]

Ward Kimball (1914 - 2002)

While Ward 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 […]

Wolfgang Reitherman (1909 - 1985)

Wolfgang Reitherman began working for Disney in 1934, along with future Disney legends Ward Kimball and Milt Kahl. The three worked together on a number of classic Disney shorts, including The Band Concert, Music Land, and Elmer Elephant and in all, Reitherman worked on various Disney feature films produced from 1937 to 1981, including Snow […]

Ralph Wright (1908 - 1983)

Ralph Wright (May 17, 1908 – December 31, 1983) was a Disney animator and story/storyboard writer who provided the gloomy, sullen voice of Eeyore from the popular Winnie-the-Pooh franchise. Ralph Wright came to the studio in the 1940s, and became well known throughout the ensuing decades for his endearingly gloomy and sullen personality traits as well […]

Marvin Miller (1913 - 1985)

Marvin Miller was born Marvin Mueller in St. Louis, Miller graduated from Washington University before commencing his career in radio. When a singer named Marvin Miller debuted on another St. Louis radio station, he began using his middle initial to distinguish himself from the newcomer. For the Mutual Broadcasting System, he narrated a daily 15-minute […]

Roy Huggins (1914 - 2002)

Roy Huggins was educated at the University of California, Los Angeles, 1935-41. After graduation, he worked as a special representative of the U.S. Civil Service, 1941-43, and later as an industrial engineer, 1943-46. Huggins’ novels include The Double Take (1946), Too Late for Tears (1947), and Lovely Lady, Pity Me (1949). When Columbia Pictures purchased the rights […]

Quinn Martin (1922 - 1987)

Quinn Martin was born on May 22, 1922 in New York City as Irwin Martin Cohn, the second of two children. His father Martin Goodman Cohn was a film editor and producer at MGM; his mother was Anna Messing Cohn. From age four he was raised in Los Angeles. He graduated from Fairfax High School. […]

Richard Hatch (1945 - 2017)

Richard Hatch was born on May 21, 1945 in Santa Monica, California. While in high school, he’d been aspiring to become an athlete in pole vaulting, and only had a passing interest in acting, as he considered himself too shy and insecure. The assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, while Hatch had just started college, […]

Candy Johnson (1944 - 2012)

Candy Johnson (February 8, 1944 – October 21, 2012) was an American singer and dancer who appeared in several films in the 1960s. She was born Victoria Jean Hulstead in Los Angeles, California, and graduated from San Gabriel High School. Her most notable films are the American International Pictures Beach Party films, in which she played […]

Harvey Lembeck (1923 - 1982)

Two weeks after graduation, Harvey Lembeck won the key role of Sam Insigna in Mister Roberts, which he played on Broadway for nearly three years, winning runner-up honors to James Whitmore as New York’s best new actor of 1948. Lembeck made three movies for 20th Century Fox, You’re in the Navy Now, Fourteen Hours, and The […]

James Nicholson (1916 - 1972)

As a child, James Nicholson developed a love of movies, especially fantasy and science fiction films. While in high school, he joined a science fiction fan club, where he met Forrest J Ackerman. The two produced a fantasy fanzine together. Years later, Ackerman’s magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland would heavily promote AIP’s movies. Nicholson’s first work […]

John Kerr (1931 - 2013)

John Kerr’s first television acting role was in 1954 on NBC’s Justice as a basketball player who believes that gamblers have ruined his success on the court. His mother appeared with him on the series, which focuses on the cases of attorneys with the Legal Aid Society of New York. John Kerr made The Cobweb for […]

Gower Champion (1919 - 1980)

During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Gower Champion worked on Broadway as a solo dancer and choreographer. After serving in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II, Champion met Marjorie Belcher, who became his new partner, and the two were married in 1947. In the early 1950s, Marge and Gower Champion made seven film […]

Joshua Logan (1908 - 1988)

Joshua Logan began his Broadway career as an actor in Carry Nation in 1932. He then spent time in London, where he “stag[ed] two productions … and direct[ed] a touring revival of Camille”. He also worked as an assistant stage manager. After a short time in Hollywood, Logan directed On Borrowed Time on Broadway. The […]