October 16 - Ham Luske

On this day, in 1903, Hamilton Luton Luske was born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the University of California, Berkeley and earned a degree. In business. Ham was also, however, an incredibly gifted artist. The places he went with his talent are even more remarkable when you know that he never had any formal art education.

Ham's first real job was as a cartoonist for the Oakland Post-Inquirer. Today we think of cartoonists as the folks who's work is relegated to the funnies section (or if they're a bit more serious the opinion page). Back in the Twenties though, before photos could be reproduced in newsprint, cartoonists were also responsible for creating advertisements. Every paper needed at least one good artist on staff.

In 1931, Ham joined the Walt Disney Studio as an animator. His first contribution was some of the animals in the Mickey Mouse short The Barnyard Broadcast. His rendering of Max Hare in the 1935 Silly Symphony The Tortoise and the Hare helped that short win an Oscar. Ham was in charge of the character of Jenny Wren in Who Killed Cock Robin? that same year. Jenny was modeled after Mae West, who was so delighted with the caricature, she wrote a letter to Walt complimenting the artistry. His successes with those two shorts led him into a pivotal role in the future of the studio.

As Walt was developing his first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, he knew that if audiences didn't connect with the title character, the whole venture was doomed. Walt also knew that he had only one animator he could trust with Snow White: Ham Luske. In order to deliver the goods, Ham created a groundbreaking technique: live-action reference films. His idea wasn't to trace a live model's movements, but to have very specific movements captured on film to inspire the animators in their drawings. He would plan out what the model would do, always keeping in mind how those moves would be used in the animated finale. Not only did this technique convince millions of audience members to actually cry during Snow White, it proved simple and effective enough to teach a whole new crop of animators how to improve their craft, ensuring the studio's success for years to come.

After Snow White, Ham plunged headlong into directing. He was co-supervising director for Pinocchio with Ben Sharpsteen. Ham was then a sequence director on Fantasia, The Reluctant Dragon and Saludos Amigos. When World War II came to the United States, he would direct training films for the troops with names like Weather at War. At the war's conclusion, Ham returned to Disney, directing sequences in almost every animated feature from 1946's Make Mine Music through 1961's 101 Dalmatians. If you remember watching the classic Donald Duck featurette Donald in Mathmagic Land in school, that was Ham's work, too. He would strike Oscar gold again in 1964 as the director of the animated parts of Mary Poppins, this time winning for Best Visual Effects.

The last few years of Ham's career had him moving into the world of television. He became associate producer and director of episodes of Disneyland and its later evolutions. Ham passed away in Los Angeles, California on February 19, 1968 at the age of 64. He was made an official Disney Legend in 1999 for his 37 years of magic making.

Also on this day, in American history: Noah Webster