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 to pass away. He was recognized by The Walt Disney Company
with its Disney Legend Award in 1989. His work was recognized with
the
National Medal of Arts in
2005.
He was an animator at
Walt Disney
Studios from 1935 to 1978, and became a directing animator
beginning with
Pinocchio, released in 1940. He
contributed to most Disney animated features, including
Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs,
Fantasia and
Bambi. 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, which
contained the
12 basic
principles of animation. 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.
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
. Ollie was a founding Governor of the
Carolwood Pacific Historical Society along with his fellow Disney
animator and railfan, Ward Kimball. The 1/4 scale Victorian depot
from Ollie's backyard was moved and restored to a location near
Walt Disney's Carolwood Barn at the area of the Los Angeles Live
Steamers club in Griffith Park, Los Angeles.
In the 1960s Ollie acquired and restored a full-size
narrow-gauge Porter steam locomotive, which he named
the "Marie E." On May 10, 2005 it ran during a private early
morning event on the Disneyland Railroad. To date, the only time
The Walt Disney Company permitted outside railroad equipment to run
at any Disney Resort. This engine and its consist were sold to
John Lasseter (of
Pixar Studios fame). The engine is fully operational
and ran recently at the Santa Margarita Ranch near San Luis Obispo,
CA, in May 2007.
Brad Bird paid a tribute to Ollie Johnston
with an animated cameo of Johnston in the 2004 Pixar film
The Incredibles [95786], as well as a cameo in his 1999 film
The Iron Giant, where he
played a train engineer
[95787].
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.
Other books by Johnston
Ollie Johnston on his garden railroad
in 1993
- 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)
References
External links
Wikis
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