
Born: Franklin Rosborough Thomas
Birthday: September 5, 1912
Location: Santa Monica, CA, U.S.
Alma mater: Chouinard Art Institute
Occupation: Animator, Director
Years active: 1934-1999
Died: September 8, 2004
Frank Thomas had an interest in drawing that began in childhood and engaged in amateur filmmaking as a teenager.
Frank was president of his sophomore class at Fresno State College, and wrote and directed a comedic film about college life as a school project. His film was quite popular and even ran in local theaters. That experience inspired Thomas to go into the arts. Frank’s father pledged to send him to an art school of his choosing if he’d complete an education at Stanford first.
At Stanford University, Thomas majored in art and earned recognition for his cartoons for the school newspaper. While at the University, he met and formed a lifelong friendship with fellow art major and future Disney artist, Ollie Johnston.
After graduating from Stanford University, he moved to Los Angeles to attend Los Angeles’ Chouinard Art Institute. Just a few months after starting classes, inspired by a roommate, Frank applied for an opening at The Walt Disney Studios and was hired as an in-betweener in the animation department on Sept. 24, 1934.
Within six months, he was assigned to Fred Moore’s unit and became Freddie’s assistant. Some of Frank’s first projects were on the Mickey’s Elephant short, scenes of Mickey Mouse and the king in Brave Little Tailor, and Mickey and the bear in The Pointer. When Walt initiated his Snow White feature film, Thomas animated the dwarfs mourning over Snow White body. He’d also animate Pinocchio singing in the marionette theatre, and the German dialogue scenes in Education for Death; one of Disney’s WWII propaganda short films.
Thomas was also a talented musician, and joined the Firehouse Five Plus Two as a piano player in the 1940s. The popular jazz group consisted of other Disney employees, and made numerous Dixieland jazz recordings and personal appearances over the years until they officially disbanded in 1971.
Frank did not participate in the 1941 strike at Disney, and as the strike was being settled, he was among the select few invited to accompany Walt on a three month goodwill tour of South America. He and Norm Ferguson were the only two animators to join the musicians, sketch artists, and storyboard artists in Walt’s South American “El Grupo.” The experiences gathered from this trip resulted in the animated films Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros.
During World War II, Thomas enlisted in the Army Air Forces and was assigned to the First Motion Picture Unit making training films. After war’s end, he returned to Disney and was promoted to direct segments of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, personally handling the scene of a fearful Ichabod riding home at night.
Frank was responsible for many of Disney’s most memorable scenes; Thumper showing Bambi how to skate on the ice in Bambi, the dogs’ spaghetti dinner scene in Lady and the Tramp, the three fairies in Sleeping Beauty, Merlin and Arthur as squirrels with the lovesick squirrel whose heart is broken in The Sword in the Stone, Baloo telling Mowgli that he doesn’t belong in the jungle in The Jungle Book, the dancing penguins in Mary Poppins, and Winnie The Pooh and Piglet in both Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too. Thomas served as directing animator for several memorable villains too, such as Cinderella’s evil stepmother, the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan’s Captain Hook.
He would continue his work as directing animator for The Aristocats, Robin Hood, and The Rescuers. Finally, after some early story development, character design and animation for The Fox and the Hound, Frank Thomas retired in 1978.
Even in retirement, Thomas continued to support the history and craft of animation. He and Ollie Johnston co-authored Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life; a book about traditional hand-drawn Disney character animation. It presents the Disney approach to animation utilizing the 12 basic principles of animation.
Frank’s final contribution to an animated film was voicing a character for Disney/Pixar’s The Incredibles. He and his longtime friend and colleague Ollie Johnston voiced and were caricatured as two old men similarly to their earlier voice work and caricatured selves as the train engineers in The Iron Giant.
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