March 6 - Stephen Schwartz

Image courtesy stephenschwartz.com

On this day, in 1948, Stephen Lawrence Schwartz was born in New York, New York. Stephen studied piano and composition at Juilliard while taking regular classes at Mineola High School on Long Island. While a student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, he wrote an early version of Pippin that was performed by the school's student run theater group, Scotch'n'Soda. He graduated in 1968, returned to New York City and began a career as a producer for RCA Records. It turned out to not be a terribly long career.

In 1970, Stephen was asked to be the musical director for America's first rock opera, The Survival of St. Joan (it's also America's first medieval rock opera if you're keeping track of that sort of thing and, before you ask, Tommy was British). Starring F. Murray Abraham and the band Smoke Rise, St. Joan had 16 off-Broadway performances before releasing an album, which Steven produced. The following year, he was hired to write new music and lyrics for the quirky retelling of the life of Jesus, Godspell, which had started life as the thesis of another Carnegie Mellon student, John-Michael Tebelak. In 1972, a new version of Pippin made it's Broadway debut, with the same concept as his college version but entirely different songs. Two years later, Stephen wrote the music and lyrics for The Magic Show. At the age of 26, he had three hit shows running simultaneously on Broadway. Not bad for a kid from Long Island (or anywhere else) if you ask me.

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In 1978, Stephen added director to the hats he wears with the musical Working, based on the book by Studs Terkel. His efforts earned him a Drama Desk award and the position of co-director for the television version. Stephen then took a break during the Eighties. He only wrote a children's book called The Perfect Peach, the music and lyrics for the one act children's musical Captain Louie, music for the revue Personals and lyrics for the musical Rags. He clearly wasn't applying himself during the me decade.

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Stephen became part of the Disney family in 1995 when he wrote the lyrics to Alan Menken's music for Pocahontas. It was the first Disney movie that Alan would work on without any input from his long time collaborator Howard Ashman. It worked out. Colors of the Wind won the pair an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Grammy. Stephan and Alan paired together again for The Hunchback of Notre Dame a year later.

In 2000, Stephan was tapped as composer and lyricist for a musical version of Pinocchio called Geppetto that aired on The Wonderful World of Disney. A stage version of Geppetto was then created (and given a new cumbersome name, Disney's My Son Pinocchio: Geppetto's Musical Tale) which of course comes with a Jr. version. Stephen re-teamed with Alan for 2007's Enchanted, three songs of which earned Oscar nominations. His last contribution (so far) to Disneyana is the theme song for the television show Johnny and the Sprites, which aired on the Disney Channel starting in 2005.

Outside of Disney, Stephen wrote music and lyrics for the Dreamwork's production The Prince of Egypt, picking up another Oscar for When You Believe. He also was composer and lyricist on another Broadway show you might have heard of, Wicked, which won three Tony Awards, six Drama Desk Awards and a Grammy. Wicked also pushed Stephen into an elite group: he is one of only two composers to have three Broadway shows run for more than 1,500 performances (the other is Jerry Herman of Hello, Dolly! fame).

In recent years, Stephen has managed to keep himself busy. He's created a stage version of The Prince of Egypt, composed three original shows for Princess Cruise Lines and was rumored to be writing songs for a sequel to Enchanted. His next definite project, slated to come out in 2021, is a film version of Wicked.

February 24 - Chris Buck

On this day, in 1958, Christopher James Buck was born in Wichita, Kansas. Like many an animator before him, Chris was lured into the art form by what he saw on the big screen as a child. His first movie going memory was to see the 1962 re-release of Pinocchio to theaters, and he’s been hooked ever since. Conveniently for his future plans, Chris’ family soon moved to Placentia, a quiet community in Orange County, California. After graduating from El Dorado High School, he spent two years studying character animation at CalArts, where he fell in with the likes of John Lasseter and Michael Giaimo. Then, in 1978, fresh out of room A113, Chris got a job with the Walt Disney Company.

Chris joined the company when it was in a dark period known as the Seventies. Walt had passed away over a decade before and the Disney Renaissance was still a decade away; not a great time to start a career. His first project was as an inbetweener (and later a full animator) for the modest 1981 hit, The Fox and the Hound.  He managed to almost completely avoid participating in the train wreck called The Black Cauldron, partly by doing some work on Mickey’s Christmas Carol instead, but mostly by leaving the company to freelance instead of becoming embroiled in the mess.

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Chris began doing work in advertising, including television commercials for Keebler, while maintaining a working relationship with Disney. In between animating a short, Fun with Mr. Future, and supervising a featurette, Sport Goofy in Soccermania, for the company, Chris began working with another young animator, Tim Burton. He helped Tim storyboard his live action short, Frankenweenie, and later became a directing animator on a short-lived show Tim produced (and Brad Bird created) called Family Dog. During the same time frame, Chris was assisting the fledgling Hyperion Animation Studio with character designs for projects like The Brave Little Toaster and supervising animation for the feature Bebe’s Kids.

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As the Disney Renaissance began to appear on the horizon in the late Eighties, Chris was busier than ever and began doing more and more work for Disney (without, as he puts it, becoming an in-house employee). He was an animator on Oliver and Company, contributed to the experimental stuff happening in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and designed characters for The Little Mermaid and The Rescuers Down Under. When Pocahontas rolled around in 1995, Chris signed on as supervising animator in charge of Percy, Wiggins and Grandmother Willow. He bumped up the food chain even further on his next picture, co-directing Tarzan with Kevin Lima.

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While Chris was able to remove himself from The Black Cauldron, he wasn’t as lucky when it came to the 2004 flop Home on the Range. All his supervising on the character of Maggie just couldn’t overcome Rosanne’s performance (or the rest of the film’s udder lack of creativity). Chris made a second break with Disney over the picture, moving over to Sony for his next project. As co-director of the 2007 mockumentary penguin hit Surf’s Up, Chris began to cement his value at the helm of animated features.

The mess surrounding Home on the Range, and the cantankerous departure of Michael Eisner as Disney’s CEO, basically put a lot of top positions at Disney, and in the film division especially, up for grabs. When the dust settled and John Lasseter had been named the chief creative officer of Animation, John sat down with his old classmate Chris for a heart-to-heart about coming back to work for Disney. One of the ideas they talked about was reviving an idea that had been kicking around the studio for years: a musical based on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Snow Queen.

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Chris teamed up with Jennifer Lee to co-direct Disney’s 53^rd animated feature, Frozen. To say it worked out for everyone involved would be a gross understatement. Jennifer, already the first woman to helm an animated Disney movie, became the first woman to helm a $1 billion grossing film period. Chris had convinced another old college buddy, Michael Giaimo (who’d also had an on again off again relationship with Disney over the years), to be art director on the picture, nabbing him an Annie Award in the process. The Frozen juggernaut has earned its directors multiple awards and spawned sequel featurettes, theme park shows and rides, a Broadway musical and, later this year, a second animated feature, once again led by Chris and Jennifer. In the land of will he/won’t he, Chris is now firmly in the position of he will be spending many more years collecting a paycheck from the Walt Disney Company. And that’s a thought worth melting for.

January 11 - Pres Romanillos

Image courtesy jimhillmedia.com

On this day, in 1963, Priscillano Antonio Romanillos was born in Zamboanga City, Philippines. When he was 6, Pres and his family moved to Queens, New York. At some point, his older brother, Bob, started to take a correspondence course in art. Bob quickly lost interest but the lessons, already paid for, kept coming. Pres began looking at his brother’s lessons, loved them and finished the course for him. When he grew older, Pres attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, eventually earning himself an MFA.

In 1989, as the Disney Renaissance was starting and the company was actively recruiting animators for the first time in years, Pres was hired on as an animation trainee. He cut his teeth on The Little Mermaid, impressing one of the supervising animators, Ruben Aquino, with his draftsmanship and passion. He continued to hone his skills on The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. By Pocahontas, Pres had been promoted to animator and worked under supervising animator Glen Keane on the title character. Pocahontas co-director Eric Goldberg said he was in awe of the sheer beauty that was Pres’ work.

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Pres made minor contributions to The Hunchback of Notre Dame but came into his own on Disney’s 36^th animated feature, Mulan. As supervising animator for the films villain, Shan-Yu, as well as the villainous sidekick, Hayabusa the falcon, Pres really threw himself into his work, albeit mostly subconsciously. He said in an interview once that he left work feeling sexy during production on Pocahontas, but when he shifted to Mulan, his wife kept asking why he was so angry all the time. Feelings below the surface or not, Pres managed to create a menacing figure in Shan-Yu that no one felt too bad about when he met his explosive demise at film’s end.

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Once Mulan was finished, Pres became another Disney casualty in the animation war of the time, when he followed Jeffrey Katzenberg to his newish studio, DreamWorks SKG. He came in during production on The Road to El Dorado as an animator. By Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, he was once again a supervising animator as he also helped design the Native American character Little Creek. Pres continued as a supervisor for Dunbar’s Crew on DreamWork’s 2003 film, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. Unfortunately for Pres (and Jeffrey and DreamWorks) none of those movies were a financial success. Following Sinbad, DreamWorks would abandon traditional animation altogether in favor of CGI. Fortunately for Pres, he was able to make the transition to computer animation and contributed to films like Shrek 2 and Madagascar.

Image courtesy lifeisapickle.blogspot.com

In 2007, Pres travelled to Spain, where he established the Enne Animation Studio with his artist friend, Scott Johnston. While there he completed a short film, The Old Chair, using characters from a blog he’d started in 2006, Life as a Pickle. Tragically, while in Spain, Pres would be diagnosed with leukemia. He returned to the States, underwent a bone marrow transplant and seemed to be on the road to recovery. He actually returned to work at Disney in July of 2009 as an animator on Prince Naveen for The Princess and the Frog.

Pres might have angered the voodoo gods through his work on Princess, though. In March of 2010, he not only suffered a relapse of his cancer, but the leukemia was much more aggressive this time around. Pres passed away on July 17, 2010. Following his death, Steve Hulett, a representative of the Animation Guild, declared that of all the animators who deserved a few more decades of artistic success, Pres was at the top of that list. He was only 47 years old.

December 29 - Duncan Marjoribanks

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On this day, in 1953, Duncan Marjoribanks was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Duncan grew up in a liberal family and was considered a far-out hippy type in high school. Painfully introverted, he was also incredibly smart and extremely talented at drawing. His talents would take him to the Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, Canada’s premiere school for animation located in Oakville, Ontario. Following his graduation from Sheridan in 1978, Duncan became part of a group that was hired by Hanna-Barbera prompting a move to Los Angeles, California. Duncan quickly became one of the studio’s top animators, working on shows like Scooby and Scrappy Doo and Godzilla. Then the great Animator’s Strike of 1982 happened. 

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The strike began as the union protested how much work was being sent overseas (where it was much cheaper to produce) and lasted for several months. The end result, ironically predictable, was that most US animation production disappeared. Duncan changed his career focus to designing characters and began freelancing for several studios. One of the projects he would work on, and his first as animator in a decade, was a short lived television series called Family Dog. It was created and directed by a guy named Brad Bird who was thoroughly taken with Duncan’s style and talent. Brad recommended Duncan to a friend of his, John Musker. John was starting a little project over at Disney about a mermaid and hired Duncan as the first animator on the team.

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Duncan became supervising animator for Sebastian the Crab on Disney’s 28^th animated feature, The Little Mermaid. He took Samuel E. Wright’s marvelous vocal performance and the basic character designs that had already been done and created one of the most endearing and enduring characters that had been seen in decades. Don’t believe me? Just watch the scene when Sebastian finally decides to help rather than hinder Ariel and get back to me.

The success of The Little Mermaid led to Duncan staying on with Disney and supervising again for the next feature film, The Rescuers Down Under, this time for the villain, McLeach. While this film did end up being less successful, it was the grueling schedule that really took its toll on Duncan. By the time the last frame had been drawn, he needed more than a vacation and actually took a year off to live in England. Which doesn’t mean he didn’t work. He provided some character design for a short-lived Hanna-Barbera show called The Pirates of Dark Water.

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In 1991, Duncan returned to the states, and Disney, to begin supervising work on another great sidekick, Abu in Aladdin. As if his previous work wasn’t impressive enough, now he would create a memorable character without using words at all. His work in the film can also be seen in the opening sequence with the shady salesman. Duncan went right from Aladdin onto the team for Pocahontas and once again supervised a villain, Governor Ratcliffe. His portrayal of Ratcliffe was more cartoonish than the other characters, which give him more of a presence, but still this side of overly flamboyant, so he remains believable. Duncan was then slated to supervise Megera for Hercules but that never happened.

Image copyright Dreamworks SKG

Around this time, Jeffrey Katzenberg was making his spectacularly messy exit from Disney and starting his own studio, Dreamworks SKG, with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. With big plans to stick it to his former employer, especially in the animation department, one of the first big talents Katzenberg poached was Duncan. The relationship didn't blossom the way anyone hoped. Duncan started out as supervising animator on Moses for Prince of Egypt but struggled with the job so much his only credit on the picture is plain old animator. He did some work on The Road to El Dorado, animating a few scenes with Tzekel-Kan and contributed some story ideas to Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron before leaving Dreamworks for good. He spent a year over at Warner Brothers, working on the animated parts of the box office bomb Osmosis Jones (he did pretty good work on the movie but left before it was finished, unhappy with the direction it was taking), before returning to the fold at Disney in 2000.

Image copyright Disney

Unfortunately, Duncan's return to Burbank came at a time when the studio was producing its worst picture since The Black Cauldron. As supervising animator for Mrs. Calloway on Home on the Range, Duncan managed some moments of greatness but the movie was a critical and financial failure. Following that disaster, he was trained in computer animation and contributed to the Bowler Hat Guy for Meet the Robinsons. Duncan then got the privilege of working on Disney's last hand drawn feature, The Princess and the Frog, as head animator for Big Daddy La Buff. 

In 2009, Duncan and Disney parted ways once again. The company had decided to stop using traditional animation techniques and Duncan didn't feel comfortable working with CGI. The only thing he's really done since then was a hand drawn short utilizing the characters from Kung Fu Panda. Which is really a shame. Hopefully some day the talent behind Sebastian and Abu, who has inspired so many animators still working today, will himself find inspiration in some new project and give us all a reason to smile again.

December 26 - Byron Howard

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On this day, in 1968, Byron P. Howard was born in Misawa, Japan. Byron grew up in Issaquah, Washington, a small city about 15 miles east of Seattle. He graduated from Issaquah High School in 1986 and moved on to Evergreen College in Olympia. His dream had always been to be an animator for Disney and to help achieve that dream he wrote Frank Thomas, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men, for advice. The letter he got back was treated like a roadmap to success and it clearly worked (or I wouldn’t be talking about him today).

To help speed up his goals, Byron moved to Orlando, Florida after his college graduation and began submitting his portfolio in an effort to get hired. While he was waiting to check that box, he figured why not and took a job at the Disney-MGM Studios as a guide on the animation tour. In 1994, after four submissions, Byron was selected to be a part of the internship program. He began as an inbetweener on Pocahontas. He then became a full-fledged animator for Mulan and by Lilo and Stitch, a mere five years after being hired, he was the supervising animator for the character of Cobra Bubbles. He continued that role with Brother Bear as supervisor for Kenai. After the release of Brother Bear (and the collapse of the Florida animation department), Byron relocated to Southern California and enjoyed another promotion.

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In 2008, Byron co-directed Disney’s 48^th animated feature, Bolt, with Chris Williams. Bolt was only moderately successful at the box office but signaled a turnaround in Disney’s commitment to story and quality in its animated offerings. Byron and Chris’ efforts earned them an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature (they would lose to Disney’s other feature that year, WALL*E). Byron followed his freshman picture with the even more successful Tangled. He co-directed the Rapunzel tale with Nathan Greno (and it strangely did not get nominated for the Oscar).
 
As they sometimes say, the third time’s the charm. In 2016, Byron teamed up with Rich Moore to direct the mega-hit Zootopia. This time out, Byron’s work became the fourth animated film to rack up over $1 Billion in worldwide box office receipts (which still only made it the fourth highest grossing film of the year) and put several little golden statues on his mantle including an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a Critic’s Choice Award and an Annie. As a follow up to Zootopia, Byron is reportedly working on a new story with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who we all now know as Jack from Mary Poppins Returns (I think he also did some sort of historical piece on Broadway).

November 24 - Billy Connolly

On this day, in 1942, Sir William Connolly was born in Glasgow, Scotland. His family lived in a two room flat until he was four. At that time, with his father off fighting in Burma with the Royal Air Force, his mother ran off with another man and Billy and his sister moved in with two of their aunts. When his father returned from war, Billy would suffer years of abuse at his hands. He can remember making the decision that he wanted to spend his life making people laugh after falling in a puddle at the age of 8 and hearing the sound he rarely heard at home. It's clearly an understatement to say that Billy's childhood was rubbish.

When Billy left school at the age of 15, he took two engineering qualifications with him (although one of them was given to him by mistake). When he turned 16, he began an apprenticeship with a welding shop as a boilermaker. His term ended when he was 21 and he would stay on at the shop for another year. By the time he was 24, Billy would have sparked his last weld in favor of a career in entertainment.

After watching an episode of the Beverly Hillbillies, Billy bought himself a banjo and decided to focus on being a folk singer. He joined forces with a man named Tam Harvey, creating a duo called the Humblebums. Eventually they were joined by a third bloke, released a record, lost the third bloke, released two more records and broke up. The records were critical, if not particularly financial, successes. Following the end of the Humblebums, Billy tried starting a solo career, but the comical introductions to his songs kept getting longer and longer. Finally, his record producer suggested that he forgo singing for a career in comedy.

In 1972, Billy made both his theatrical debut (in a revue titled Connolly's Glasgow Flourish) and his first solo album, Billy Connolly Live! The following year, his next album, Solo Concert, made him famous throughout Britain. Throughout the rest of the Seventies, Billy would continue to build on that fame and export his name to other countries, like New Zealand and Canada. A brief tour in the US as the opening act for Elton John, however, only proved that Americans for the most part can't understand a Scottish accent.

During the Eighties, Billy would continue his stand up, appear in multiple films, show up regularly on British television, promote all sorts of charitable causes and nearly drink himself to death. His first marriage ended after 16 years in the first part of the decade. In the middle of the decade, he became a teetotaler. By the end, his second marriage had begun (and continues to this day).

In the Nineties, Billy would finally gain fame in America. After starring in an HBO special with Whoopi Goldberg, he would replace Howard Hesseman as the teacher on the ABC sitcom Head of the Class for the final season. A couple of world tours and multiple part BBC specials would help round out the decade.

Billy became part of the Disney family in 1995 as the voice of Ben, a shipmate of John Smith, in Pocahontas. The following year, he narrated Muppet Treasure Island as Billy Bones. His third Disney role came sixteen years later when he headed up the Scot heavy cast of 2012's Brave as the singing patriarch King Fergus.

For the better part of the 21st century (the better part of what's happened so far), Billy has continued to make both comedic and dramatic appearances on television, the silver screen (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) and more stand-up tours. Along the way, he's won a BAFTA award, gotten a Screen Actor's Guild nomination, become a member of the Order of the British Empire, been declared the top comedian by BBC's Channel Four (twice) and been fully knighted. Six years ago, he revealed that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. Earlier this year, he announced his retirement from touring at an exhibition of his art in his new home in Florida. Whether or not we'll see any more spectacular performances from the funnyman will depend entirely on how his disease progresses. With any luck, Billy has more than a few left in him.