Oct. 31 is legendary animator Ollie Johnston's birthday .
Happy Birthday Ollie ! and my deepest affection and admiration for all that you've given to the animation world through your work as an animator and also as an author/teacher with that wonderful, magical book you gave us : "Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life" (co-authored with longtime colleague Frank Thomas) .
Earlier this year I read that Ollie had packed up the house in La Canada and moved north to be with his children. I don't imagine that Ollie spends too much time reading blogs (or maybe he does ?) and probably not this one, but if anyone is in touch with Ollie and could let the rest of us know how he's doing and communicate to him our continued good wishes and affection , I'd appreciate hearing about it.
I'd encourage anyone who hasn't seen the documentary about Ollie and his friend Frank Thomas to get it and watch it today : Frank and Ollie
(even if you have seen it before now's as good a time as any to watch it again !)
Here's a little snippet of it that should be incentive for you to go watch the whole thing . I've always enjoyed this very sweet memory of Fred Moore from his former assistant , Ollie Johnston :
[sometimes the movies can take a bit of time to load up so be patient]
So, I always wonder if Ollie has used that little bit of magic graphite left in Fred Moore's pencil yet ?
Here's a photo of Ollie working on Johnny Appleseed in the '40's :
A couple of Ollie's animation drawings from "The One Hundred and One Dalmatians" (click image to see it larger)
