June 26 - Woolie Reitherman

Image courtesy alchetron.com

On this day, in 1909, Wolfgang Reitherman was born in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Woolie, as he was generally known, and his family moved to Southern California when he was but a babe. He graduated from Pasadena Junior College and became a draftsman for the Douglas Aircraft Company. His interest in the more artistic side of drawing felt stifled at Douglas, however, and he began taking classes at the Chouinard Art Institute. Woolie graduated from Chouinard in 1933 and was immediately hired on at the Walt Disney Studio as an animator.

Woolie began in the Shorts Department (of course, it was the only department for a few more years) with his first project, the Silly Symphony Funny Little Bunnies. He then lent his talents to classics like The Band Concert, Elmer Elephant and Goofy and Wilbur. As most of the crew was being pulled into the new Features Department in the mid Thirties, Woolie was tasked with doing all the Magic Mirror sequences for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He continued to mostly work on features from that point on. For Pinocchio, he was in charge of the dramatic parts with Monstro the Whale and he specialized in action sequences after that.

Image courtesy d23.com

Woolie's talent, combined with his seemingly endless amount of energy, helped him rise to the top of studio's animation pool and he became part of the elite group Walt affectionately called his Nine Old Men. He managed to tackle the dinosaur fight in the Rite of Spring part of Fantasia and produce several scenes with Timothy Q. Mouse in Dumbo before World War II interrupted his career. In 1942, Woolie left the studio to join the United States Air Force. He served as a pilot in Africa, India, China and the South Pacific,  becoming an ace and earning both the rank of Major and the Distinguished Flying Cross. He received an honorable discharge in 1946 and returned to work at the Walt Disney Studio.

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Following the war, Woolie slipped back into his old role of head animator directing parts of Fun and Fancy Free as well as the Headless Horseman for The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad. Over the next dozen years he directed sequences in Cinderella (Gus Gus and Jacques), Alice in Wonderland (the White Rabbit), Peter Pan (Captain Hook and Tick-Tock Croc), Lady and the Tramp (Tramp and the rat) , Sleeping Beauty (Prince Phillip's fight with Maleficent) and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (the Twilight Bark). Then, in 1963, Walt did something he'd never done before and made Woolie the sole director of The Sword in the Stone (up to that point multiple directors were in charge of various scenes in a film).

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Following Stone, Woolie would continue to be sole director of whatever he did. His next project was Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, the studio's first Pooh short. He then helmed The Jungle Book, followed by Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short. When Walt passed away during the production of those last two films, Woolie was credited as the one that managed to corral everyone's egos and keep them focused on getting the job done without their guiding light of the last thirty years. For the remainder of his career, he also added the role of producer to his resume, the position formerly held by Walt.

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Woolie charged on successfully throughout the Seventies, adding his name to the list of the highest grossing directors in the process. He produced and directed Robin Hood, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and The Rescuers. His career ended on a slightly sour note. His last film for the studio was The Fox and the Hound, for which he was initially slated to co-direct. He had some pretty epic conflicts with Art Stevens, his co-director, however and was taken off the project, being left with a co-producing credit instead. Following that, he tried to get a couple of ideas off the ground only to be vetoed in favor of The Black Cauldron. Seeing the writing on the wall, Woolie chose to retire in 1981 after 47 years making animation magic.

Woolie's life ended tragically just a few years later. On May 22, 1985, the car he was driving veered into a tree blocks away from his Burbank, California home, killing him in the process. He was 75 and the third of the Nine Old Men to pass away. Four years later, Woolie would be officially named a Disney Legend along with the rest of the Men in just the second class of Legend inductees.