Century Birthdays - Al Coe and Roy Williams

BORN 100 YEARS AGO TODAY

Al Coe, and animator known for his work on shorts at Disney and Lantz and Roy Williams, long time story man at Disney were both born a century ago today!

Sorry everyone, but I lost the articles I wrote on these two (and for Dick Bickenbach which should have been up on August 9th) with the crash of my computer. This was made worse by the fact that my internet connection was down for several days and even now is sometimes on, sometimes off (thank you Verizon!) To add to the confusion, I have family in town for the next week or so.

I apologize for missing these posts, but they WILL be up as soon as I can get them finished and posted.

Neighbors - chapter I

Santa Barbara

Like many seaside communities, Santa Barbara has been home to quite a number of artists. A handful of them would move to Los Angeles and ply their profession in the field of animation. Others from the industry would eventually retire in this picturesque community.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, two men who would later have significant careers in the field, were neighbors here on the same street!

These two were Erni Nordli and Paul Julian. They were separated in age by just two years and likely attended the same schools, though history doesn't record if they actually knew each other while they were neighbors.

By 1930, seventeen year old Ernest Nordli and his family had recently relocated here from Salt Lake City, his birth place. His parents, Hans and Hattie moved the family into a modest home at 901 Valerio Street just southwest of the town's business district.


Ernest had five siblings; one older brother, Philip; two younger brothers, William and Douglas and two younger sisters, Ruth and Genevieve. The family of eight squeezed into this three bedroom home where they all shared one bathroom.

A career in the arts was not an unlikely pursuit for Ernest. His father was a lino-typist at a nearby publishing house and his mother taught music at their home. Within the next few years, Ernest would be among the artists working at the Disney Studio on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Later he would be an art director on Dumbo and Fantasia then moved into layout at both Warner Bros. and Disney's.

A few houses up the street, beyond a dog-leg in the road, was the Julian family who had moved west from South Bend, Indiana a decade earlier.

Paul Julian was born Paul Hull Husted on June 25, 1914 in Illinois. His brother Harry was born two years later in Indiana. By 1920 their mother, Esther, had married a second time to a gentleman by the name of Frank Julian.

While it is not clear what became of their father, (He may have been killed while serving in WWI) it is known that within the next few years the boys would take the name of their stepfather.

The Julian family would grow to six with the arrival of two more boys, Frank Jr. and Daniel, born after they arrived in Santa Barbara. Their three bedroom home, similar to many in the area, can be found at 814 W. Valerio Street.

Between Frank, a barber and Esther, an art school instructor, the family was well-off enough to have a live-in servant, Margaret Johnson, who was from Scotland.

Paul Julian would go on to become a prolific watercolorist and a well respected background artist at several studios including Warner Bros. and UPA, where his paintings were the essence of the Oscar-nominated short, The Tell-Tale Heart.

(click on the addresses listed above for a map to the homes)

Note: This is the first of what will certainly be many posts on this subject. Over the past fifteen years I have done a tremendous amount of research on where the luminaries of the industry lived and worked. Along the way I discovered that quite a few lived near one another and in some cases were even roommates. Some of the names you'd expect (Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, for example,) while others are quite surprising! If you liked this post, there is a lot to look forward to in the coming months!

Ghosts of the Charles Mintz Studio

A BIT MORE OF THE WHERE...

On a nondescript street just a short walk from the busy intersection of Western Avenue and Santa Monica Blvd. stands a building that's been there for more than eighty years. In those years it's been painted and painted over again. Its large arched windows, once complete with a decorative wrought iron fence have been sealed over.

(click on the images below for larger versions)

This building, not at all different from many others scattered across this city, sits in a state of quiet decay. Weeds, chewing gum, spray paint and goodness-knows-what-else are evident on the walls and sidewalk. One might wonder what things this building has witnessed in its eight decades....

Upon closer inspection it becomes clear....

In 1930 the staff of the nearby Charles Mintz Studio gathered there for a few group photographs.

Here are composer Joe DeNat, Manny Gould, Harry Love, Charles Mintz, George Winkler, Al Rose, Ben Harrison and Jack Carr.

In this photo are DeNat, Art Davis, Charles Mintz, Sid Marcus and Dick Huemer. The building is located at 5454 Virginia Avenue just around the corner from the Mintz Studio at 1154 N. Western Avenue.

Much of the 1920s era stucco work on the building is intact as shown in the photos below. It's a miracle these details exist, considering the amount of renovation (and layers of paint) this place has been subject to!

(click for larger image)

I experienced a mildly chilling moment when it confirmed without question that this is the exact location where these legends of the industry stood to be photographed over 75 years ago.

A few steps away at 5437 Virginia is the apartment building where George Winkler, Manny Gould, Joe DeNat and production manager James Bronis were living at the time. It is apparent that this building too has seen better days.


I'd like to thank Harry McCracken at Scrappyland.com for having posted the original photos of the Mintz Staff. If you haven't visited Scrappyland yet, I suggest you take a look -- it's a terrific retrospective on an often forgotten cartoon series and the people that created it! The middle group photo is from Leonard Maltin's Of Mice and Magic.

Century Birthday - Edward Plumb

BORN 100 YEARS AGO TODAY

Disney composer and orchestrator Edward Holcomb Plumb was born and raised in Streator, Illinois, a town on the Vermilion River 100 miles southwest of Chicago. His parents Samuel and Anna already had two sons by the time Edward was born. Along with his older brothers Samuel Walter, Jr. and Gordon, his grandmother, Levancia Plumb lived with them at 206 Wilson Street.

Plumb arrived in California in the early 1930s and found work as a composer and orchestrator in the movies. His first work for Disney was for the memorable short, Mother Goose Goes Hollywood.

He married Louise Mason and they welcomed a daughter, Susan in May of 1938. They made their home on a winding street in the hills near Silver Lake. With the addition of two more daughters Anne and Elisabeth in the early 1940s, the family was complete.

While Frank Churchill wrote the songs for Bambi, the poetic score for the film was executed by Ed Plumb. His work on Bambi would earn him the first of his four Academy Award nominations.

Although Disney seemed like home base for Ed, he frequently worked on projects beyond Walt's Studio during the 1940s and early 1950s. He worked on titles for Republic, Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox. At one point he even lent his talents to MGM for the Tom & Jerry short, The Missing Mouse (1953.) It is unclear where Scott Bradley may have been for this one!

By the early 1940s Plumb had moved his family to 12203 Laurel Terrace in the hills of Studio City. Here he was a neighbor of other Disney composers Charles Wolcott, whose home was at 12185 and Joe Dubin who was later at 12373 Laurel Terrace.

Edward worked as orchestrator at the nearby new location of the Disney Studio on the animated features The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, Song of the South, So Dear to My Heart, Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp.

When Disney entered the field of television, Edward was tapped to work on The Disneyland TV show, notably Ward Kimball's "Man in Space" show. He orchestrated on the Davy Crockett films and on Westward Ho The Wagons, that also starred Fess Parker. His final film project, also for Disney, was Johnny Tremain in 1957.

Edward Plumb passed away on Friday April 18, 1958.


(If you haven't already clicked on the location links above, check out the Google Maps Locations for Ed Plumb.)

Memorial Day Tribute - Willard Bowsky

After the United States entered World War II in December 1941 the service from the animation community was considerable. Most people continued to work at the studios, albeit on far different projects than what they were used to. A good number joined the military where many of them would work producing training films as members of the Signal Corps and others would serve in various capacities at locations throughout the country. There was a small handful however, who enlisted in the military and saw combat.

Willard Bowsky was one of them.

Willard G. Bowsky was born in 1907, the second son to parents Herman and Emma Bowsky. The Bowskys were married in the spring of 1898 and welcomed their first son, Merle on Christmas Day 1904.

During Willard's childhood the family lived on both sides of the Hudson River, jumping between homes in New Jersey and Manhattan. Shortly after Willard was born the Bowsky's moved in with his recently widowed grandfather, Gustav Cimiotti at 881 West End Avenue in Manhattan. At the time the home was filled with several of Willard's aunts and uncles as well.

By the time of Willard's tenth birthday they were living at 132 Sherman Avenue and his father was working as a lawyer with the American Railway Express Company. In the early 1920s the Bowskys had moved to 559 W 188th Street near northern tip of Manhattan. It is from this home that Willard would commute as he started work in the field of animation.

Bowsky began his work at the Fleischer Studios in the late 1920s and by 1930 had elevated to the level of a credited animator. His animation work can be seen in the Talkartoon, Color Classics and Screen Song (Bouncing Ball) films, but he is well known for animation on dozens of Betty Boop and Popeye cartoon shorts.

In later work on the Popeye films his work has been described as that of director, a credit generally reserved for Dave Fleischer. In any case, Bowsky was at least a supervising or directing animator, though he never received a credit beyond that of animator.

In the fall of 1938 Bowsky had relocated to Florida to the beautiful new home of the Fleischer Studios in Miami. There he would continue to be a lead animator on the Popeye shorts and also on the animated feature films, Gulliver's Travels and Mr. Bug Goes to Town.

Early in 1942 Max and Dave Fleischer were gone and the studio was under control of Paramount and was renamed Famous Studios. The last films that Bowsky was involved with were the Superman cartoon shorts.

Motivated by a personal sense of duty (coupled with a possible disenchantment with the direction of the studio,) Willard Bowsky, unmarried at the time, enlisted in the Army on October 14, 1942. His older brother Merle had enlisted some time earlier.

Following training, Willard was assigned to the 14th Armored Division. He was a platoon leader with 50 men under his command in the 94th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron. He also made an artistic contribution to his squadron by designing the unit’s insignia (at left.)


The 14th Armored Division arrived at Marseille, France on October 30, 1944. Within a couple weeks Bowsky's unit was among those mobilized to join the Seventh Army in the Southern Vosges Mountains (due east of Paris, near the German border.)

Willard’s was among the squadrons that comprised The Division’s Combat Command A (CCA). They were soon ordered to advance into an area southwest of Strasbourg, just west of the Rhine. CCA’s mission was to clear German forces from the area and fight its way south to the town of Selestat. Cavalry squadrons were used for reconnaissance and were deployed in front of and along the flanks of advancing armored columns. Bowsky's unit encountered a German column withdrawing eastward to cross the Rhine. A night time fire-fight erupted and Second Lieutenant Willard Bowsky was killed in action on November 27, 1944. Willard and the men of his platoon were good soldiers who fought bravely. In the end the fight was won. Willard was a genuine war hero.

He was awarded the Silver Star and the Purple Heart and is interred at the Lorraine American Cemetery in St. Avold, France .


We remember Willard Bowsky today and honor his service to his county, his contributions to the field of animation and celebrate the centennial of his birth.

REFERENCES and CONTRIBUTIONS