August 18 - John Debney

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On this day, in 1956, John Cardon Debney was born in Glendale, California. John’s father, Louis, was a television producer for the Walt Disney Studio throughout his childhood. Louis was responsible for episodes of The Mickey Mouse Club, Zorro and the Disneyland anthology show. You name it and if it occurred during those early years, Louis had a hand in it. As a result, John did a whole lot of growing up on Disney soundstages and backlots. He also received the musical talent in his family, having started guitar lessons when he was just six years old. He also became proficient at a keyboard (the piano kind not the computer kind) and rotated through a number of bands right on into his college years. He was talented enough to get into the music program at CalArts and dedicated enough to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Music Composition in 1979. He then had to wait two whole weeks before starting a new job at the same place his father earned his living for so many years.

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John started out at Disney about as low on the totem pole as you can get. He was in the copying department and was basically what they call a runner. He gathered up sheet music and recordings and ran them to wherever they needed to go. Until the day the Legendary composer Buddy Baker, who undoubtedly was aware of both John’s parentage and his musical degree, dropped a little project in his lap. Buddy needed someone to arrange some French classical music into a medley and if it could seamlessly repeat itself, that would be great. Could John accomplish that? Sure, no problem. Soon Buddy was bringing John all sorts of tasks like that. One week it might be German oompah bands, the next traditional Japanese melodies. It might sound like a bunch of eclectic busywork, but by the end of three years, John had arranged and composed a big chunk of the background music that was going to be heard continuously in the pavilions of the World Showcase area of Disney’s newest park, EPCOT Center. So the next time you find yourself drinking around the world, pause a moment in each country and enjoy some of John’s early work.

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After three years of cutting his teeth with Disney, John was ready to cut himself loose and began freelancing as a composer of musical scores. He worked exclusively in television to begin with, collaborating with Mike Post, the legendary producer of series like Magnum, P.I., Quantum Leap and Hill Street Blues. He also dove into the madcap world of television animation with the Hanna-Barbera Studio apprenticing under their long-time musical director, Hoyt Curtin. During this period John wrote the scores for series as diverse as Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Young Riders (which earned him his first of three Emmy Awards for musical composition) and Dink, the Little Dinosaur.  As the Eighties turned into the Nineties, John began getting work writing scores for independent films, including two directed by Beau Bridges, The Wild Pair and Seven Hours to Judgement. Those projects led to his first studio film and the resurrection of a long relationship with the Walt Disney Company, for the second generation of Debneys.

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John returned to Disney in 1993 with the score for a little Halloween film that has since become a cult classic, Hocus Pocus. Since then he’s provided the music for all sorts of Disney films including White Fang 2, Houseguest, the Mickey Mouse short Runaway Brain, I’ll Be Home for Christmas, My Favorite Martian, Inspector Gadget, The Emperor’s New Groove (which nabbed an Annie Award nomination), The Princess Diaries (and its sequel), Snow Dogs, The Hot Chick, Raising Helen, The Pacifier, Chicken Little, Hannah Montana: The Movie, Old Dogs, Iron Man 2, and 2016’s live action remake of The Jungle Book.

Highlights of John’s work outside of Disney include several more collaborations with Garry Marshall (Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve) and John Favreau (Elf, Zathura: A Space Adventure). He nabbed his only Academy Award nomination so far for his work on Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (he lost to Finding Neverland). He also picked up two more Emmy Awards, one for writing the main theme for SeaQuest DSV and another for scoring the pilot episode of The Cape. Currently you can hear John’s work on two television series, The Orville on Fox and Santa Clarita Diet on Netflix, as well as in movie theaters, if Dora and the Lost City of Gold is your thing. And of course, you can always take a stroll around World Showcase, where John’s music has been playing for over thirty years and will continue to underscore your Epcot adventures for many more to come. Happy 63^rd birthday John!

June 5 - Stephen J. Anderson

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On this day, in 1970, Stephen John Anderson was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Stephen, like so many others in the animation industry, studied character animation at the CalArts School of Film and Video. When he graduated in 1991, he went to work for Hyperion Animation Company. Hyperion was founded by Thomas L. Wilhite, a former head of production at Disney, and is best known for the Brave Little Toaster series. Stephen was an animator on Rover Dangerfield (basically a vanity project written, produced and starring Rodney Dangerfield) and Bebe’s Kids (a box office flop based on the standup of the late Robin Harris). He was also able to cut his directing teeth at Hyperion on the USA Network series The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

In 1999, Stephen became part of the Walt Disney Company as a story artist on Tarzan. A story artist is not to be confused with a storyboard artist who is responsible for drawing the series of sketches that show what a scene might look like as the film develops. A story artist is a screenwriter who makes contributions to the script but not enough to share in a screenplay by or story by credit. By the very next year, Stephen had moved up to the Story Supervisor position for The Emperor’s New Groove. He then continued in that role for 2003’s Brother Bear.

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In 2007, Stephen got to step up to the plate and take another swing at directing for Disney's 47th animated feature, Meet the Robinsons. As has become de rigueur, he also provided the voices for several of the film's characters including the villain, Bowler Hat Guy, Grandpa Bud and Cousin Tallulah.  The film garnered mostly positive reviews, but failed to take in much more than its $159 million budget. Personally I think it's one of the vastly underrated Disney films of the modern era.

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Stephen followed Robinsons up by providing additional voices for Bolt and as an animator and additional story man on Tangled. He was tapped for a co-director, with Don Hall, for the 2011 Winnie the Pooh feature. The newest adventure in the Hundred Acre Wood was a critical success but not particularly a financial one. It wasn't a flop by any means, making $50 million on a $30 million budget, but opening the same weekend as the final Harry Potter movie didn't do it any favors. Stephen then added additional story elements to the juggernaut known as Frozen as well as voicing Kai, Anna and Elsa's loyal steward. His last feature credit was as an additional story artist on Zootopia. He is reportedly working on a new project as director, but there is no word on what that film might be. What ever it is, we look forward to seeing it and hope it becomes the box office success that Stephen deserves.

February 3 - John Fiedler

On this day, in 1925, John Donald Fiedler was born in Platteville, Wisconsin. When John was five, the family moved across the state to Shorewood. After graduating from Shorewood High School in 1943, he immediately enlisted in the United States Navy and served for the duration of World War II. Following his honorable discharge, John moved to New York City and fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming an actor when he joined the Neighborhood Playhouse.

John's first big professional role came on the radio comedy The Aldrich Family as Homer Brown. He became something of a staple in early television, making his small screen debut as Alfie Higgins on Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and then making guest appearances on nearly every anthology show that existed, including two episodes of both The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. One of his best known television roles came in the Seventies when John was cast as Mr. Peterson, one of Bob's regular patients on The Bob Newhart Show. John spent most of his life as an in-demand guest character on shows covering the decades from Gunsmoke to The Golden Girls and genres from Cheers to Quincy, ME.

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John hit the big screen for the first time in 1957, as nervous little Juror #2 in Twelve Angry Men with Henry Fonda. He would go on to contribute to such film classics as The Odd Couple, True Grit, Harper Valley PTA and The Cannonball Run. A role that he originated on Broadway and reprised in the movies, was that of Karl Lindner in A Raisin in the Sun. John was so perfect as the seemingly innocuous Improvement Association representative who tries to buy a black family out to keep them from moving into his neighborhood, that he was picked to reprise the role again for a television version in the Eighties.

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Although John has provided the voice for numerous roles for Disney, most people will think of only one when they hear his voice. When Disney released Winnie the Pooh and Honey Tree in 1966, they upset fans by not including Piglet (more on that tomorrow). For the next installment two years later, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, they rectified their error and gave John a character he would play for nearly four decades. He gave voice to everyone's favorite little pig in shorts (Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too), features (Piglet's Big Movie), television shows (Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too) and video games (Kingdom Hearts). From 1968 until 2005, all the dozens and dozens of things that Piglet made an appearance in, John endearingly stuttered him to life.

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But Piglet wasn't the only thing John did for Disney, not by a long shot. He also voiced Father Sexton in Robin Hood, appeared in The Shaggy D.A. as Howie Clemmings, played Deacon Owl in The Rescuers, did Porcupine for The Fox and the Hound, and was the poor guy who threw off the emperor's groove, Rudy, in both The Emperor's New Groove and Kronk's New Groove, the sequel being his final film appearance.

After over sixty years of being the classic "I know that guy but I can't think of his name" character actor, John would succumb to cancer on June 25, 2005 at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey. Interestingly, his good friend and longtime Pooh co-star, Paul Winchell, the voice of Tigger, had passed away the day before. Sadly, neither of them has been declared official Disney Legends as of yet. Looks like Disney has another Pooh snafu they need to fix.

January 17 - Eartha Kitt

On this day, in 1927, Eartha Mae Keith was born near North, South Carolina (and, yes, that is a confusing name for a town). Her early life was anything but idyllic. Born on a cotton plantation to a mother of American Indian and African descent, it's widely believed that Eartha was the product of a rape perpetrated by the plantation owner's son. When her mother began living with a man who refused to take her in, Eartha began living with a relative known as Aunt Rosa, who abused her. When her mother died, Eartha was shipped off to the Harlem neighborhood of New York City to live with another relative, Mamie Kitt. Life took a decided upturn with her arrival in New York, which may have prompted the name change from Keith to Kitt.

Eartha attended the Metropolitan Vocational High School, better known after its own name change as The High School of Performing Arts (it's the setting for Fame if that helps you place it, but since that's a terrible movie, try to henceforth think of it as the birthplace of the careers of Eartha and Liza Minnelli, to name just two). Her professional career began in 1943 with the Katherine Dunham Company, the country's first African American modern dance troupe. She would tour with the company for the next five years.

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As the Fifties rolled around, Eartha began extensively touring the cabaret halls of Europe. This wasn't a big stretch for her as she reportedly spoke four languages (English, German, Dutch and French) and could sing in eleven. During the decade, she recorded a number of hits including Let's Do It, C'est si bon, which made it into the top ten, and her most well known song (another top ten), Santa Baby, which is still played repeatedly every Christmas.

In between the European tours and studio recordings, Eartha managed to find time to appear on Broadway as well. In 1950, she starred as Helen of Troy in an Orson Welles directed production of Dr. Faustus. She reteamed with Orson in 1957 for Shinbone Alley (co-written by a young Mel Brooks). Eartha was also in a handful of films including 1958's St. Louis Blues and Anna Lucasta with Sammy Davis Jr.

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With the dawn of the Sixties, Eartha continued to make records, sing in nightclubs, and appear in films. Near the end of the decade she added television to her resume in a big way when she replaced Julie Newmar as Catwoman during the final season Batman. With her career growing all the time, it all came crashing down in 1968.

At a luncheon at the White House in January of that year, then First Lady Ladybird Johnson asked Eartha what her thoughts were on the Vietnam War. Never one to hold back, Eartha replied "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot." She also made comments about mothers raising their children to be sent off to war and asked Ladybird about her own children. The First Lady reportedly burst into tears at the luncheon table and, as a result, a smear job was begun against Eartha lead by the CIA, who branded her a sadistic nymphomaniac. She was now basically unemployable in the US.

Luckily, Europe didn't care what the CIA said. Eartha spent most of the Seventies making appearances on BBC variety shows and touring her old cabaret haunts. By 1978 the furor had died down in the States and she made a triumphant return to Broadway in Timbuktu! Her sultry performance was nominated for a Best Actress Tony. In 1987, she took London's West End by storm as Dolores Gray in Follies. Throughout the Nineties and into the Aughts, she joined several productions: as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, The Wild Party, Nine and, in a touring show that I had the pleasure of seeing, the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella.

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Earth joined the Disney family in 2000 when she voiced the deliciously evil Yzma in The Emperor's New Groove. The animators apparently loved her performance as they found her distinct way of enunciating really easy to work with. They weren't the only ones to enjoy Yzma; Eartha won an Annie Award for her performance. She would continue to bring the old crone to life in the sequel, Kronk's New Groove, and for the animated television series, The Emperor's New School. During the two seasons the latter one ran, Eartha would manage to win two Emmy Awards and two more Annie Awards.

Eartha was an activist for most of her life. She established the Kittsville Youth foundation to help underprivileged youth in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. She supported a group of youths in the Anacostia part of Washington DC. She was a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. As the AIDS crisis heated up, she frequently sang at benefit concerts. She was an out spoken advocate of LGBT rights. Having been down and out and repressed herself, she constantly looked out for anyone she saw in the same position.

In 2008, faced with inoperable colon cancer, Eartha lived out her last days near her only daughter in Weston, Connecticut. Kitt, her daughter, says that, characteristically, Eartha did not leave this life quietly but fought and literally screamed until the end. Perhaps fittingly, she breathed her last on Christmas day. She was 81.