Eric Larson: Generous and Unstoppable Animator
Some of my earlier blogs have talked about Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men,” a nickname that Walt Disney gave to the top animators at his studio. At this point, my blog hasn’t acknowledged all of the men who were in that group, and I wanted to tell you about an artist who not only animated a variety of Disney characters, but also helped a new generation of animators during his 53 years at Walt Disney Studios: Eric Larson.
Eric Larson was born in Cleveland, Utah on September 3rd, 1905. When he was 10 years old, his family moved to a ranch in Salt Lake City. Although his original childhood ambition was to become a journalist, he secretly took drawling lessons because he was fascinated by the personalities of the animals who lived on his parent’s ranch. In 1925, he entered the University of Utah and later relocated to Los Angeles to look for a journalism job, sadly to no success. He then decided to try to pursue a career as an artist, and at the suggestion of a friend, submitted some of his drawings to Walt Disney Productions. He was hired as an “in-betweener,” in 1933. (An “in-betweener” is an artist that transitions each of the drawings from frame to frame).
Eric Larson first applied his drawing skills to the “Silly Symphonies” Short Cock o’ The Walk which was released in 1935. This short featured a sequence that Larson animated with dancing hens like dancing showgirls. Despite the difficulties he experienced, Hamilton Luske, who was another animator who worked at Disney at the time, recognized the talent and potential of Larson and promoted him to assistant animator, and because of that, he got to collaborate with James Algar and Milt Kahl, another one of Walt’s “Nine Old Men,” on animating each of the animals in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). When Disney green-lit Pinocchio (1940), Eric was promoted to Animation Director and supervised all the animation of Figaro the Cat, along with the scary “Donkey” sequences. Figaro the Cat became one of the favorite characters of Larson’s to animate, because he also explained his later years how little boys can relate to not being comfortable with showing affection to their younger siblings, as Figaro is towards Cleo the Fish. Although both Figaro and Cleo still love their father, Gepetto dearly. (Figaro was also a favorite of Walt Disney, himself.)
Larson continued to be an animator on Dumbo (1941), a supervising animator on Bambi (1942) and a Directing Animator on Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), Lady & the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). In 1953, Burny Mattinson was employed by Disney and on June 4th, 2018, he surpassed Eric Larson as the Walt Disney Studios longest-serving employee at a total of 65 years. Mattinson was very well acquainted with Eric Larson and said he was “like a dad,” to him. Larson explained that one of his fondest memories of working at Disney was getting to animate Peggy Lee as Peg the Tibetan Spaniel in “Lady & the Tramp,” because he was greatly inspired by her sultry singing voice as well as the way she walked. When Disney started Mary Poppins (1964), Larson was also very excited to return to his country roots when he was given the task of animating each of the animals in the farm sequence in the “Jolly Holliday” scene in the film.
In the 1970s, Eric Larson was still working at Disney while the other “Nine Old Men,” either had retired or were deceased. In 1973, he founded a recruitment training program that brought a new generation of animators to the studio. This new generation included Brad Bird (future Oscar-winning screenwriter/director of The Incredibles (2004) and its sequel, and voice of Edna Mode), John Musker and Ron Clements (future writers/directors of The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), and Moana (2016)), Andreas Deja (future supervising animator of Gaston in Beauty and the Beast (1991), Jafar in Aladdin (1992), and Scar in The Lion King (1994)), and Glen Keane (future supervising animator of Ariel in “Little Mermaid,” the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast,” and Aladdin in “Aladdin.”), to name a few. This new generation also included Tim Burton and Henry Selick, who later collaborated together on Disney’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and James and the Giant Peach (1996).
Eric Larson also designed the opening main titles on The Rescuers in 1977 and served as an Animation Consultant on the Oscar-nominated short Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983) and the films The Black Cauldron (1985) and The Great Mouse Detective (1986) before he finally retired from Disney in 1986 and died two years later at the age of 83 on October 25th, 1988 due to natural causes. In the history of Disney Animation, there have been many artists who left enduring legacies, but few have left a legacy that is as beautiful and as generous as Eric Larson.
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