May 18 - Larry Lansburgh

Image courtesy d23.com

On this day, in 1911, Lawrence Muzzy Lansburgh was born in San Francisco, California. Larry’s father, Gustav Albert Lansburgh, was an architect who designed many of the opulent theaters built on the west coast during the early part of the twentieth century. His work includes the San Francisco Opera House and the El Capitan Theater in Los Angeles (the latter now fully owned and restored by the Walt Disney Company). The family was wealthy enough that young Larry learned to ride horses at a venerable old stable on the campus of Stanford University and developed a lifelong love of animals at the same time.

After finishing high school, Larry moved to Texas to tend livestock and compete in the rodeo scene. He loved working with the animals but couldn’t make enough money to keep his stomach full. Eventually he had to give it up, move to Hollywood and become a stuntman for Cecil B. DeMille. He hated it but it paid the bills. Or at least it paid them right up to the moment he fell off a horse and broke his leg in 1939. Now in his late twenties, and injured, Larry desperately took the first position he could find. That job just happened to be as a delivery boy at the Walt Disney Studio. Larry probably couldn’t feel it at that moment, but he was going to turn out just fine.

Image courtesy npr.org

Larry started out at Disney whisking memos and story boards and all manner of things between the different departments, including bringing Walt his lunch every day. As time went on, he slowly worked his way up through the ranks, learning film editing, writing, sound production and cinematography. As a cameraman, Larry joined Walt and his crew when they went on their goodwill tour of South America. Some of his footage can be seen in the two films that came out of that tour, Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. 

Following World War II, Larry started producing and directing films, becoming instrumental in the filming and production of the True-Life Adventure films. By the mid Fifties, he was making his own documentary films for the company. His 1956 film, Cow Dog, was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1957, Larry started his own production company, sort of. For the first several years, he was mostly funded and distributed by Disney, but he did have the autonomy to make whatever movies he wanted. Two of his movies from this early period would win Oscars, The Wetback Hound in 1958 and The Horse with the Flying Tail in 1961. During this same period, he was also asked to direct several animal based episodes of The Wonderful World of Disney. 

Image courtesy filmaffinity.com

Larry never liked the word documentary. He always felt that there was plenty of drama to be found in the lives of animals, if only you looked hard enough. But he was equally against using gimmicks to make a story. If you let the animals be themselves, the story will present itself. Larry was a also a pioneer in not only championing the ethical treatment of animals in film but in keeping guns out of sight of his audience, especially on films geared toward kids, and if a gun did appear, it was never used gratuitously.

By the early Seventies, Larry had moved his production company to a sprawling ranch in Oregon. He continued to make films throughout the next couple of decades, mostly using local talent.  He also used his prodigious talent as a horseman as a judge for the American Royal Horse Show, held each fall in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1998, for all his help in moving the Walt Disney Studio beyond animation and into live action films, Larry was declared an official Disney Legend. Three years later, among the dogs and horses he'd loved all his life, Larry passed away on his ranch in Eagle Point, Oregon. He was 89.