Born: John Alan Lasseter
Birthday: January 12, 1957
Location: Hollywood, CA, U.S.
Alma mater: California Institute of the Arts
Occupation: Animator, Writer, Director, Producer, Storyboard
Years active: 1978-present

John Alan Lasseter was born in Hollywood and grew up in Whittier, California. As a child, Lasseter would race home from school to watch cartoons on television, and he drew during services at church.

In high school, he read Bob Thomas’ The Art of Animation and saw Disney’s The Sword in the Stone, inspiring him become an animator. After discovering Preston Blair’s book about animation, he made flipbooks using Blair’s walk cycles, and with the help of a friend’s Super 8 camera capable of shooting single frames, he filmed some of his early animation drawings.

After graduating from high school in 1975, John enrolled in the new CalArts Character Animation program where was taught by three members of Disney’s Nine Old Men team of veteran animators; Eric Larson, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. Lasseter’s classmates included future animation personalities like Brad Bird, John Musker, Henry Selick, Tim Burton, and Chris Buck. While at CalArts, he produced two student Academy Award for Animation winning shorts, Lady and the Lamp and Nitemare.

Largely due to the strength of his student project, Lady and the Lamp, Lasseter immediately obtained a job as an animator at Walt Disney Productions after graduation from CalArts in 1979. There, he worked on a sequence named The Emperor and the Nightingale for a never completed Disney project called Musicana.

The following year, John found video tapes from one of the then new computer-graphics conferences, showing some of the earliest computer animation. While working on Mickey’s Christmas Carol, his friends Jerry Rees and Bill Kroyer invited Lasseter to see the CGI light cycle sequences in production for Tron. He saw the possibilities of using the new technology to make 3D backgrounds over which traditionally animated characters could interact.

John spoke with Glen Keane about making such an animated feature, and they agreed the book The Brave Little Toaster would be a good candidate for adaptation. They decided to do an animated short as a test first and chose Where the Wild Things Are. The short test went well, and they went forward with the project, although Keane eventually stepped down to work on The Great Mouse Detective.

Lasseter’s passion for the project and new medium was so great, he inadvertently offended some of his superiors. John’s supervisor, animation administrator Ed Hansen, shelved the project and terminated Lasseter’s employment with Disney Animation.

John’s friend Ed Catmull at Lucasfilm hired Lasseter for freelance work in late 1983 on their first computer-animated short, The Adventures of André & Wally B. Working together closely with Catmull and his computer science team, John learned how to use their software, and taught them about filmmaking and character animation.

The following summer, Catmull hired Lasseter as a full-time employee for Lucasfilm. John worked with ILM on Young Sherlock Holmes for the scenes with the stained glass window knight. It was the first entirely computer-generated photorealistic animated character.

Lasseter and Catmull’s collaborated next on Toy Story, which was the first-ever computer-animated feature film. John also created Tex, the THX robot mascot in 1996.

Lucasfilm Computer Graphics was renamed the Pixar Graphics Group by the time George Lucas was financially pressured to sell it off as a separate corporation. The following decade saw Pixar grow into a full-blown animation studio with Lasseter as executive producer to oversee every feature film and project in addition to directing Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Cars, and Cars 2.

When Disney bought Pixar in 2006, John became chief creative officer and executive producer of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios as well as principal creative adviser at Walt Disney Imagineering. John had Disney Animation begin producing animated shorts in 2D, CGI, or combinations of both for theatrical release.

John took a six-month leave of absence in 2017 after allegations of workplace misconduct, and left Disney and Pixar the following year. Lasseter was hired by Skydance Animation in 2019 as producer on all feature films and executive producer on all series.

John Lasseter earned two Academy Awards over his career; Best Animated Short Film for Tin Toy in 1989 and a Special Achievement Award for Toy Story in 1996. Lasseter was nominated for other projects; Luxo, Jr., Monsters, Inc., and Cars. He was presented the Winsor McCay Award In 2008, for lifetime achievement in animation.