Obituaries: Ollie Johnston, famed animator

Ollie Johnston, one of the greatest animators the world has known and the last surviving member of an elite group of animation pioneers known affectionately as Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men,” died Monday.

Johnston, a resident of La Cañada Flintridge since 1945, was 95 years old. He died of natural causes while in residence in Sequim, Wash., where he moved this past year to be near his sons, Ken and Rick.

Another of Disney’s “Nine Old Men,” Johnston’s next-door Flintridge Avenue neighbor and friend Frank Thomas, died in 2004. Johnston and Thomas made their marks in local history with their antics in the “Father’s Frolics,” a series of fund-raising talent shows for La Cañada’s elementary schools.

During Johnston’s 43-year career at The Walt Disney Studios, he contributed his talents in animation and direction to such classic films as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Pinocchio,” “Fantasia,” “Song of the South,” “Cinderella,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Peter Pan,” “Lady and the Tramp,” “Sleeping beauty,” “Sword in the Stone,” “Mary Poppins,” “The Jungle Book,” “Robin Hood,” “The Rescuers” and “The Fox and the Hound.”

Johnston and Thomas were also authors who collaborated on four landmark books: “Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life,” “Too Funny for Words,” “Bambi: The Story and the Film” and “The Disney Villain.” Johnston and Thomas were also the title subjects of a heartfelt 1995 feature-length documentary titled, “Frank and Ollie,” written and directed by Frank’s son, Theodore (Ted) Thomas.”

Johnston’s son Ken remembers his father as being a wonderful storyteller. “Both my brother and I lived a magical life with our dad. After work, when he came home he would bring out a large drawing tablet and he would call it our “Family Chalk Talk Time.” He would fill that big tablet with whimsical characters and then would create a story to go with them. The story would always include my brother and I as we became the characters in his drawing.

“What was so special about my dad is that he wanted to pass on not only his excitement and passion for animation but also his vast knowledge of the art form to younger animators,” Ken said.

Roy E. Disney, director emeritus and consultant for The Walt Disney Company, said, “Ollie was part of an amazing generation of artists, one of the real pioneers of our art. One of the major participants in the blossoming of animation into the art form we know today.

“One of Ollie’s strongest beliefs was that his characters should think first, then act and they all did. He brought warmth and wit and sly humor and a wonderful gentleness to every character he animated. He brought all those same qualities to his life, and to all of our lives who knew him. We will miss him greatly, but we were all enormously enriched by him.”

Andreas Deja, one of today’s most acclaimed and influential animators, paid tribute to Johnston. “I always thought that Ollie Johnston so immersed himself into the characters he animated, that whenever you watched Bambi, Pinocchio, Smee or Rufus the cat, you saw Ollie on the screen. His kind and humorous personality came through in every scene he animated. His words of wisdom and encouragement to me was, ‘Don’t animate drawings, animate feelings.’ What fantastic and important advice. He was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, and it was an honor and joy to have known him.”

Johnston was born in Palo Alto on Oct. 31, 1912. He attended grammar school at the Stanford University campus where his father was a professor of the romance languages. His artistic abilities became increasingly evident while attending Palo Alto High School and later as an art major at Stanford.

During his senior year in college, Johnston came to Los Angeles to study under Pruett Carter at the Chouinard Art Institute. It was during this time that he was approached by Disney and, after only one week of training, joined the fledgling studio in 1935.

At Disney, Johnston’s first assignment was as an “in-betweener” on the cartoon short “Mickey’s Garden.” The following year he was promoted to apprentice animator, where he worked under Fred Moore on such cartoon shorts as “Pluto’s Judgment Day” and “Mickey’s Rival.”

Johnston got more than his toes wet when he dived into his first job at animating on a feature film with “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Following that first venture into feature animation he then worked on “Pinocchio” and virtually every one of Disney’s animated classics that followed.

One of Johnston’s proudest accomplishments was on the 1942 feature, “Bambi,” which pushed the art form to new heights in portraying animal realism. Johnston was one of four supervising animators to work on that film.

For his next feature assignment, “Song of the South” (1946), Johnston became a directing animator and served in that capacity on nearly every film that followed. After completing some early animation and character development on “The Fox and the Hound,” the veteran animator officially retired in January 1978 to devote his time to writing, lecturing and consulting.

Another passion for Johnston began when he was a child — a love for trains. He was such an enthusiast that he hand-built a miniature railroad that meandered around his Flintridge hills property. His enthusiasm for train rolling stock made a quantum leap when he purchased a full-size antique locomotive he ran for many years at his former vacation home in Julian, near San Diego. Johnston had a final opportunity to ride his antique locomotive at a special ceremony held in his honor at Disneyland in May 2005.

Over the many years of his career, Johnston was the recipient of kudos and awards. In 1989 Johnston was honored by the studio with a Disney Legends Award. In 2003, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences held a special tribute to him and Frank Thomas, “Frank and Ollie: Drawn Together,” in Beverly Hills.

Johnston is survived by his two sons: Ken Johnston and his wife Carolyn; Rick Johnston and his wife Teya Priest Johnston. Ollie’s beloved wife Marie passed away in May 2005.

Funeral plans are private. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations be made to CalArts (calarts.com), the World Wildlife Fund (worldwildlife.org), or National Resources Defense Council (nrdc.org). The studio is planning a life celebration with details to be announced shortly.