March 20 - Holly Hunter

Image courtesy fandango.com

On this day, in 1958, Holly Hunter was born in Conyers, Georgia. Holly moved north when it came time for college, earning a degree from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She hung around the three rivers area for a few years after graduation, performing at City Theater on Pittsburgh's southside. Eventually she moved to New York City where she roomed with another young actress named Frances McDormand. In 1982, she was briefly stuck in an elevator and that random event changed the course of her career. The only other person stuck with her just happened to be a playwright, Beth Henley, who just happened to have a show playing on Broadway, Crimes of the Heart, that just happened to need a replacement actress.

Holly followed up Crimes with Beth's off-Broadway show The Miss Firecracker Contest. The two together gave her the means to move to Los Angeles, California to take on Hollywood. She got a few bites in made-for-television movies before landing her first significant role in 1984's Swing Shift, starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. That same year she had her first collaboration with the Coen Brothers, albeit an uncredited one as the voice on an answering machine. Holly's breakout happened three years later when she reteamed with the Coens for Raising Arizona (which included her old roommate, Frances, another Coen favorite) and was nominated for an Oscar for Broadcast News.

Image copyright Miramax

Holly followed up 1987 with the screen adaptation of Miss Firecracker, a Steven Spielberg movie (Always) and, on television, Roe v. Wade (which earned her an Emmy Award). In 1992, Oscar smiled on her twice more, first with a nomination for Best Supporting Actress for The Firm and then with a gold statue for Best Actress in The Piano. Holly continued to divide her time between the big and small screens. She earned another Emmy in 1993 for her part in The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom. She's been in dramas like Levity and comedies like Little Black Book. She earned another Oscar nomination in 2003 for the film Thirteen. Starting in 2007, Holly executive produced and starred in her own drama, Saving Grace, on the TNT network. Grace ran for three seasons and earned its star two SAG Award nominations, a Golden Globe Nomination and another Emmy nomination.

Image copyright Disney

Holly first joined the Disney family with her third collaboration with the Coen Brothers, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which was a Touchstone Pictures production. She also appeared in Touchstone's 2002 drama Moonlight Mile. Her biggest contribution to Disneyana though came in 2004, when she gave voice to Helen Parr (also known as Elastigirl) in Pixar's smash hit The Incredibles. She reprised the role in the sequel (14 years later) in The Incredibles 2 as well as several video games that have featured Elastigirl.

In recent years, Holly has continued to spend time on screens both large and little. She earned a whole slew of award nominations (and two wins) for her supporting role in The Big Sick. She also was nominated for a SAG Award and won an Equity Award for her work in the Sundance network miniseries Top of the Lake. In 2016, for all her accomplishments in the theatrical world, Holly was presented with an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Carnegie Melon University. No word on what Dr. Holly's next project might be, but the chances that it will make a splash come award season are pretty high.

September 24 - Brad Bird

On this day, in 1957, Phillip Bradley Bird was born in Kalispell, Montana. Since his grandfather was CEO of the Montana Power Company and his father was in the propane business, you might have thought that Brad would have had leanings toward a career in energy. You would have been wrong. Brad decided pretty early in life what he was going to do with his and it had more to do with using electricity rather than producing it.

On a family trip at the age of 11, Brad was taking a tour of the Walt Disney Studios when he met Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, two of Disney's Nine Old Men. This meeting prompted him to turn to his family and announce that he would be part of Disney's animation team some day. For most 11 year olds, that would have been the end of it. Brad returned home and actually began working on a 15 minute animated film. And it only took him two years to complete it. By the age of 14, Brad was getting mentoring from another of the Old Men, Milt Kahl. It's no surprise that Disney would eventually give him a scholarship to the California Institute of the Arts. It's also no surprise that one of the people Brad made friends with at CalArts was a student by the name of John Lasseter.

After graduating, Brad of course went to work for Disney. He contributed to The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron. Then he got fired. But that was okay, it happens to the best of us (right Tim Burton?). Brad moved into television animation. He did an episode of Amazing Stories. He co-wrote the movie *batteries not included. Then, in 1989,  he started working at a little animation studio called Klasky Csupo. One of the first assignments Brad got was taking these one minute filler animations on The Tracey Ullman Show and developing them into a full half hour stand alone program. For the first eight years of its life, Brad helped develop the look of The Simpsons and even directed a few episodes. Some might also recognize that Klasky Csupo was the company that produced The Rugrats. Brad was an animator for the pilot of that show as well.

In 1999, Brad's feature directorial debut, The Iron Giant, was released by Warner Brothers. The movie was a huge critical success (it still has a 96% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and a huge box office failure (it only managed to earn 31 million dollars on an 80 million dollar budget). Because Warner had decided they were getting out of the animation game, the studio basically did the equivalent of heaving Giant out of a moving car and squealing off. Zero marketing, zero caring, zero anything. Which of course meant that Giant would become a cult classic. Nevermind the fact that it's also a great movie. Again, the movie's financial woes were okay: that's when Brad made the move to Pixar.

The first project Brad pitched to his old friend now new boss, John Lasseter, was a superhero flick. It would be the first Pixar film to be mostly populated by human characters, which are much harder to animate than animals or toys. Brad got the go ahead to write, direct and act in the movie, so he wrote, directed and did voice work for his second feature film, The Incredibles. This time around, Brad achieved both critical and box office gold. And like any good director, he saved (in my opinion) the best character for himself, Edna Mode. That's right. Edna is voiced by a guy and yet she's still fabulous! You may have also noticed that Mr. Incredible looks a bit like Brad. Supposedly, he didn't realize the animators had done that until too far into production to change anything. Supposedly.

After The Incredibles, Brad went on to write and direct another Pixar hit, Ratatouille. He became part of the senior creative team at the studio, overseeing such gems as Up, Toy Story 3, Brave, Monster's University, Inside Out and Coco. At some point in there he got the opportunity to direct his first live action film, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol for Paramount. That led to a second live action movie, Tomorrowland, this time for Disney, which he also wrote, produced and did some design work. Then, earlier this year, he finally released The Return of Edna Mode, more popularly known as The Incredibles 2. It was worth the 18 year wait.

Brad's work has earned him numerous Annie Awards, Oscars, Golden Globes, Saturn Awards and BAFTA Film Awards. He reportedly has several project ideas in the works. I'm pretty sure that whatever the future brings for Brad, he's going to need more shelf space in the den.

September 8 - Frank Thomas

On this day, in 2004, Franklin Rosborough Thomas passed away in La Canada Flintridge, California.

 Born in Fresno, California in 1912, Frank grew up the son of the President of Fresno State College. He figured out what he wanted to do in life pretty early. By the time Frank was nine, he'd already asked his dad how to make a living drawing pictures. When he was a sophomore at (surprise!) Fresno State, Frank wrote and directed a movie poking fun at college life. The local theater even ran it for a while. Frank's career was on its way.

After finishing his schooling at Stanford University, Frank enrolled in the Chouinard Art Institute. He moved into a rooming house in Hollywood where one of the other boarders worked for a little outfit called the Walt Disney Studio. That boarder told Frank he should apply and on September 24, 1934, he became Disney employee no. 224.

For Frank, animation was all about personality. Doing funny things in interesting places wasn't enough for him. "Until a character becomes a personality, it cannot be believed," he said. And no one could infuse their characters with more personality than Frank. Some of the most iconic scenes are as memorable as they are because Frank animated them. Think of the following:

The dwarfs crying at Snow White's grave.

Bambi and Thumper learning how to skate on the ice.

Lady and the Tramp eating spaghetti.

Pinocchio singing in the marionette theater.

Merlin and Madame Mim in their wizard's duel.

King Louie singing "I Want to be Like You" with Baloo.

Scenes with Winnie the Pooh and Piglet exploring life together.

Every one of these scenes has become so much more than ink and paint on acetate because Frank was a master at infusing personality into his drawings. And it wasn't just about touching or rambunctious scenes either. Frank was a directing animator for some fantastic villains, too: Lady Tremaine, the Queen of Hearts and Captain Hook.

Frank easily earned his place as one of Walt's Nine Old Men. He even joined Walt on his goodwill tour of South America in 1941. Frank was absent from the studio from 1942-46 as he had joined the Air Force as part of the First Motion Picture Unit, creating training movies, but hit the ground running on his return like he'd only been on a short vacation.

After Walt's death, Frank would spend another 11 years at the studio creating such characters as Pongo and Perdita for 101 Dalmatians, Baloo, Mowgli and Kaa for The Jungle Book, Prince John and Sir Hiss for Robin Hood, and Bernard and Bianca for The Rescuers. After more than 43 years of outstanding animation artistry, Frank retired from the Disney Studio on January 31, 1978. But his work didn't end there.

Throughout his career, Frank was best friends with another of the Old Men, Ollie Johnston. The two were practically inseparable at Disney and they would remain so in retirement. After both had laid down their drawing pencils in 1978, they began new careers as authors. The first book they published together was called "Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life". It is generally recognized as the bible of hand drawn animation. I have a copy myself, not because I'm an artist but because it's a gorgeous, richly detailed book. The duo went on to co-write three other books: Too Funny for Words, Walt Disney's Bambi, and the Disney Villain (which I also own, a signed copy no less, be very jealous).

Several homages have been given to Frank and Ollie over the years. In the 1995 Mickey Mouse short "Runaway Brain", the mad scientist's name is Dr. Frankenollie. Brad Bird, director of The Incredibles movies, loved Frank and Ollie so much he immortalized them in not one but two of his films. He made them the train engineers in The Iron Giant and the two geezers talking about the "old school" in the first Incredibles, which would come out after his death. 

Frank was named a Disney Legend in 1989 along with the other Nine Old Men.