Marie Johnston, the wife of legendary Disney animator Ollie Johnston, passed away on May 20 from complications due to pneumonia, at her home in Flintridge, California. She was 87 years old and had been in declining health. The Johnstons celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary earlier this year.
Thurl Ravenscroft, who provided the rumbling "They're Grrrrreeeat!" for Kellogg's Tony the Tiger ads and voiced many Disney characters, has died of prostate cancer, reports CNN. He was 91.
"I'm the only man in the world that has made a career with one word: Grrrrreeeat!" Ravenscroft told the ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER in 1996. "When Kellogg's brought up the idea of the tiger, they sent me a caricature of Tony to see if I could create something for them. After messing around for some time I came up with the 'Grrrrreeeat!' roar, and that's how it's been since then."
Howard Morris, best known for roles on YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS and as poetry-spouting Ernest T. Bass on THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, died on May 22, 2005, reports CNN. He was 85.
For his animation career, the comedian was under contract in the 1960s with Hanna-Barbara Prods. and ended up providing voices for such shows as THE JETSONS, THE FLINTSTONES, ATOM ANT, THE ARCHIE SHOW, BEETLE BAILEY, MY FAVORITE MARTIANS, COW AND CHICKEN and DUCKTALES. He also did most of the voices for Gene Deitch's Oscar-winning classic short, MUNRO.
Henry Corden, the second voice of Fred Flintstone died May 19, 2005, of emphysema at AMI Encino Hospital, at the age of 85, according to his longtime agent Don Pitts. Corden's wife of nine years, Angelina, was with him at the time.
Born in Montreal, Canada, Corden moved to New York City as a child and came to Hollywood in the 1940s. His first acting role was in the 1947 Boris Karloff film, THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY. With his dark hair, bearded face and deep voice, Corden often played villains and heavies.
Joe Grant, one of Walt Disneys most creative and trusted artists and storymen, who designed the Queen/Witch character in SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, and co-wrote DUMBO, passed away May 6 at his home in Glendale, California. He was 96, just nine days short of his 97th birthday. Grant suffered a heart attack while working at his drawing board at his home studio. Still very active, Grant continued to work at Walt Disney Feature Animation four days a week, including the day before he died.
Animator/director Ed Eddie Friedman passed away on April 29, 2005, at the age of 92 in Los Angeles, due to complications from a stroke he had suffered a stroke about a year ago. From 1933 until 1989, Friedman worked for Iwerks, Mintz/Screen Gems, John Sutherland, Disney, UPA, Format, Bagle Productions, Ed Graham and Filmation.
Cartoonist Emil Samuel Zekley (aka Zeke Zekley), 90, died April 28, 2005 at his Beverly Hills home, with his family at his side, after a long illness.
He drew BRINGING UP FATHER/MAGGIE AND JIGGS, PEACHY KEEN, DUD DUDLEY, MCDONALDLAND MAGAZINES, THE SQUIRRELS CLUB MAGAZINE for Glendale Federal Savings and AT EASE magazine for the U.S. Army.
BLUES CLUES animator Paul Beard died April 22, 2005, from injuries suffered the previous day in a two-vehicle crash southeast of Kansas City, Missouri, reports THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS. He was 27 years old.
Beard, a 2000 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, was a passenger in a Ford Explorer driven by his girlfriend, Elizabeth Smail, when she lost control and swerved into oncoming traffic on state highway 13. A second Ford Explorer struck the passenger-side door, where Beard was sitting. Smail was injured, but survived.
Romania-born cartoonist and illustrator André François, whose satirical style moves editorial cartooning away from traditional realism, died on April 11, 2005, at his home in Grisy-les-Plâtres, France, reports THE NEW YORK TIMES. He was 89. Cause of death was heart and kidney failure.
James Robbins "Bob" Gardiner passed away April 21, 2005, in Grass Valley, California, where he resided from 1991 to 2005, reports THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE. He won an Oscar and other national and international awards in 1974, for the groundbreaking clay animated short film CLOSED MONDAYS, which he wrote, sculpted, directed and co-produced.
TV distributor Claude S. Hill died March 18 in Kingsport, Tennessee at the age of 71, reports VARIETY. Through ARP Films, he distributed many of the Marvel Comics animated shows, including SPIDERMAN, INCREDIBLE HULK, MIGHTY THOR and CAPTAIN AMERICA. In addition, he distributed ROCKET ROBIN HOOD, MAX THE 2000 YEAR OLD MOUSE and STAR BLAZERS.
He was a long time member of the Friar's Club and NATPE.
He is survived by his wife, Janice, a daughter, two grandchildren and one great-grandson and two sisters.
On April 6, 2005, animation designer/comic strip artist Gene Hazelton passed away at age 85.
Hazelton was born in 1919 and by his teens was assisting cartoonist Jimmy Hatlo on the popular newspaper panel, THEY'LL DO IT EVERY TIME. In 1939, he took an entry-level job at Disney, where he worked his way from gag-man to animator. His most notible work at Disney was animating the goat kids and cherubim in FANTASIA and several sequences in PINOCCHIO.
Veteran animator and producer Hal Seeger passed away on March 13, 2005, at the age of 87. Seeger started in animation as an assistant animator at the Fleischer Studios. He also served as a ghostwriter for Bud Counihan's BETTY BOOP comicstrip. In the late 1950s, he started Hal Seeger Prods., in New York City, specializing in television commercials. In the early 1960s, his studio created cartoons for syndication and Saturday morning television, including a KoKo The Clown revival OUT OF THE INKWELL, ABC's THE MILTON THE MONSTER SHOW and BATFINK.
Vance Gerry, a veteran Disney animation storyman, layout artist and visual development artist since 1955, passed away on March 5, 2005, at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California, of complications from cancer. He was 75 years old.
Steven Cohen, vp of business & legal affairs, Buena Vista Television, died in his sleep on Jan. 31, 2005, at the age of 33. A memorial service will be held on Monday, February 7 at 2:00 pm at Mount Sinai Memorial Park in Los Angeles. The cause of death has not been released.
Actor John Vernon passed away in his sleep on Feb. 1, 2005, at his Los Angeles home. He was 72 years old. The death is attributed to complications from heart surgery he had on Jan. 16. His animation work included Rupert Thorne on BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, and Major Glenn Talbot, Sub-Mariner and Iron Man on THE MARVEL SUPERHEROES SHOW as well as WILDFIRE (1986), THE INCREDIBLE HULK (1996-97), PINKY AND THE BRAIN (1995-98) and HEAVY METAL (1981). Vernon is best known for his role as Dean Wormer in 1978's ANIMAL HOUSE.
Dan Lee, who helped create such characters as TOY STORY 2s Jessie, MONSTERS, INC.s Boo, and FINDING NEMOs namesake, Nemo, passed away on Jan. 15, 2005, at the age of 35 of advanced metastatic lung cancer.
Legendary comics and graphic novel artist and writer Will Eisner died Jan. 3, 2005, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the age of 87, following complications from quadruple heart bypass surgery, reports Bob Andelman, author of the upcoming authorized biography, WILL EISNER: A SPIRITED LIFE.
A comics artist since the 1930s, Eisner was the first to use "silent" balloonless panels to show characters' emotions by focusing attention on their accentuated facial expressions.
Actor Jerry Orbach, who voiced Lumiere in Disneys BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, has died of prostate cancer at 69 in Manhattan on Dec. 28, 2004. Orbach is best known for his work on TV and the stage. He starred as veteran cop Det. Lennie Briscoe on LAW & ORDER and was the original narrator in the off-off-Broadway hit THE FANTASTICKS, which ran for more than 40 years.
John Parr Miller, an early animator for Walt Disney and best-selling children's books illustrator, died on Oct. 29, 2004, in Long Island, reports THE NEW YORK TIMES. He was 91 and lived in Manhasset, New York. His death was announced by his family.
J. P. Miller is best known for his work on the Little Golden Books line of books. His THE LITTLE RED HEN is still a perennial seller, despite being published a half a century ago.
Comedian and voice actor Dayton Allen died on Nov. 11, 2004 at age 85. Animation fans will remember him most as the voices of Heckle and Jeckle. Born Dayton Allen Bolke, he was a native of New York and he got into show business, following the path of his boyhood friend, Art Carney. Both broke into radio in their teens as disc jockeys and specialists in funny voices. Dayton used his skills on early children's TV shows, dubbing in voices for puppets and often appearing on camera.
Alexandra Tholance, press attaché for CARTOON, passed away Nov.7, 2004, after a long battle with breast cancer.
Alexandra Tholance, press attaché for CARTOON during the past decade, passed away Nov.7, 2004, after a long battle with breast cancer.
Her family has organized a religious ceremony Nov. 10 at 3:00 pm at the Notre Dame Church in Villerupt, the little village east of France near the Belgium/Luxembourg border where she lived with her companion Alain Berberi.
Ivor Wood, the animator who worked on some of the best-loved children's television programs, including THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT, THE WOMBLES, PADDINGTON and POSTMAN PAT, has died in London, reports THE TIMES. He was 72 years old.
Animation checker and actress Kathrin Victor, who was also known as Kathrin Leichliter, died on Oct. 22, 2004 in Los Angeles from complications after a stroke at the age of 81. From 1960 until her retirement in 2000 she worked for Graphic Arts, Snowball, DeTiege, Eagle, Creston, Hanna-Barbera, DePatie-Freleng, Filmation, Don Bluth, Box Office Originals and Disney TV Animation.
Actor Christopher Reeve, star of four SUPERMAN films and real life hero after becoming paralyzed from the neck down, died Oct. 10, 2004, in Bedford, New York, from heart failure at the age of 52.
The great-looking lead of four SUPERMAN films, THE BOSTONIANS, SOMEWHERE IN TIME and THE REMAINS OF THE DAY became a quadriplegic, confined to a wheelchair when he broke his neck and injured his spinal cord when he was thrown from a horse in an equestrian event in 1995.
