September 17 - Robert Carey Broughton

On this day, in 1917, film effects artist Robert Carey Broughton was born in Berkeley, California.

 A California native through and through, Bob grew up in Glendale, graduating from Glendale High School. He then moved on to Glendale Junior College. When he had learned all he could there, he took the next logical step and went to the University of California, Los Angeles (you thought I was going to say UC Berkeley, didn't you?). Not one to shy away from a challenge even then, Bob studied chemistry, physics, math and optics, all of which would help him fulfill his destiny making movies.

In 1937, Bob got the most iconic Hollywood job he possibly could at the Walt Disney Studio: he started in the mail room. And just like in the movies, he didn't stay there long. Bob quickly got pulled to the camera department as an assistant in the test camera area. His job was to shoot test footage of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to check for fluid movement before the final shots were made. Bob's eye for detail helped him graduate from test footage to working on the granddaddy of Disney innovations, the multiplane camera. He helped give visual depth to Pinocchio and Bambi. Then came Fantasia and another semi-promotion: Bob was one of only two people running a special camera creating special effects like the ghosts on Bald Mountain.

After the successes of Fantasia, Bob was promoted again, this time to camera department supervisor. At about the same time, World War II broke out and Bob signed up to serve in the United States Army. He was assigned to the Field Photographic Branch of the Office of Strategic Services, what would eventually become the CIA. Bob spent most of the war working with director John Ford making documentaries of the fighting. They would win the Academy Award for best documentary in 1942 for their film about the battle of Midway.

Following the war, Bob returned to the Disney Studio and began working as assistant to Ub Iwerks. He started transitioning into doing effects for live action films. Bob was even in charge of filming Walt's introductions to the Wonderful World of Color television show for a while. He believed that his job was to create effects in the most subtle way possible. He once said "If it looked like we doctored up a scene, we were a failure." One of his great successes was making Dick Van Dyke dance with penguins in Mary Poppins, using a system called Color Traveling Matte Composite Technology to blend the live action shots with animation.

After 45 years with company, putting his mark on almost every movie from 1937's Snow White to 1979's The Black Hole, Bob retired from Disney in 1982. But only from officially working as he headed up the retiree club, The Golden Ears, for the next 15 years. In 2001, Bob became a Disney Legend. In January of 2009, he passed away in Rochester, Minnesota. He was 91.