Franklin Rosborough Thomas (September 5, 1912 – September 8, 2004) was an American

animator An animator is an artist who creates multiple images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games ...

and pianist. He was one of

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

's leading team of animators known as the Nine Old Men.

Biography

Thomas was born on September 5, 1912 in

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...

to Frank Thomas, a teacher, and Ina Gregg. He had two older brothers, Lawrence and Welburne. He grew up in Fresno. Frank Thomas attended

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

, where he was a member of Theta Delta Chi fraternity and worked on campus humor magazine ''The Stanford Chaparral'' with Ollie Johnston. After graduating from Stanford in 1933, he attended Chouinard Art Institute, then joined

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on Octobe ...

on September 24, 1934, as employee number 224. There he animated dozens of feature films and shorts, and also was a member of the

Dixieland Dixieland jazz, also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band ...

band Firehouse Five Plus Two, playing the

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

Career

His work in

animated cartoon Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

shorts included ''

Brave Little Tailor ''Brave Little Tailor'' is a 1938 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. It is an adaptation of the fairy tale ''The Valiant Little Tailor'' with Mickey Mouse in the title role. It was ...

'', in which he animated scenes of

Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is an animated cartoon Character (arts), character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime mascot of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red sho ...

and the king, Mickey and the bear in ''

The Pointer ''The Pointer'' is a 1939 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures on July 21, 1939. The short was directed by Clyde Geronimi and animated by Fred Moore, Frank Thomas, Lynn Karp, Seamus ...

'', and German dialogue scenes in the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

short ''

Education for Death ''Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi'' is an animated propaganda short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released on January 15, 1943, by RKO Radio Pictures, directed by Clyde Geronimi and principally animated by Milt Kahl, Wa ...

'' (shortly before Thomas enlisted in the

Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

). During World War II he was assigned to the First Motion Picture Unit where he made training films. In

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

s, among the characters and scenes Thomas animated were the dwarfs crying over Snow White's "dead" body, Pinocchio singing at the marionette theatre, Bambi and Thumper on the ice, ''Lady and the Tramp'' eating spaghetti, the three fairies in ''Sleeping Beauty'', Merlin and Arthur as squirrels and the "wizard's duel" between Merlin and Madam Mim in ''The Sword in the Stone'' (in which he was paired with animator Milt Kahl to great effect), King Louie in ''The Jungle Book'' (the song number "I Wan'na Be Like You" featuring King Louie and Baloo the Bear re-teamed him with Kahl), the dancing penguins in ''Mary Poppins'', and Winnie The Pooh and Piglet in ''Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day'' and ''Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too''. Thomas was directing animator for several memorable villains, including the evil stepmother Lady Tremaine in ''Cinderella'', the Queen of Hearts in ''Alice in Wonderland'', Captain James Hook in ''Peter Pan'', and story consultant in ''Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland''. He retired from Disney on January 31, 1978. In the 1980s and 1990s, Thomas served on the advisory board of the National Student Film Institute and often was a presenter at the annual film festival's award ceremonies. Thomas co-authored, with fellow Disney legend Ollie Johnston, the comprehensive book '' Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life'', first published by Abbeville Press in 1981. Regarded as the definitive resource book on traditional hand-drawn character animation (particularly in the Disney style), the book has been republished numerous times, and is widely considered "the bible" among character animators. The book summarized the Disney approach to animation through the so-called 12 basic principles of animation. Thomas and Johnston were also profiled in the 1995 documentary ''Frank and Ollie'', which screened at the 20th

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...

, directed by Thomas's son Theodore Thomas. The film profiled their careers, private lives, and the personal friendship between the two men. In 2012, Theodore Thomas also directed another short documentary, "Growing up with Nine Old Men", included in the Diamond edition of Disney's ''Peter Pan'' DVD. Thomas's last work in an animated film before his death was for ''The Incredibles'' (directed by

Brad Bird Phillip Bradley Bird (born September 24, 1957) is an American film director, animator, screenwriter, producer, and voice actor. He has had a career spanning forty years in both animation and live-action. Bird was born in Montana and grew up ...

), although he voiced a character, rather than animating one. Frank and his friend and colleague Ollie Johnston voiced and were caricatured as two old men saying "That's old school ..." "Yeah, no school like the old school." The pair had previously been heard, and caricatured, as the two train engineers in Bird's ''The Iron Giant''. Thomas died in

La Cañada Flintridge, California La Cañada Flintridge, commonly known as "La Cañada" (Spanish for "The Canyon"), is a city in the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains in Los Angeles County, California. Located in the Crescenta Valley, in the western edge of Southern Califor ...

on September 8, 2004, three days after his 92nd birthday. His widow, Jeanette A. Thomas, died on September 29, 2012.Remembering Jeanette Thomas 1921–2012 The 2001 biography ''Walt Disney's Nine Old Men & The Art of Animation'' by

John Canemaker John Cannizzaro Jr. (born 1943), better known as John Canemaker, is an American independent animator, animation historian, author, teacher and lecturer. In 1980, he began teaching and developing the animation program at New York University, Tisch S ...

() chronicles Thomas' life. On the ''Animation Podcast'', Disney director

John Musker John Edward Musker (born November 8, 1953) is an American animator, film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He often collaborates with fellow director Ron Clements and is best known for writing and directing the Disney films ''The Great Mo ...

discussed Frank Thomas, and mentioned that at one time, fellow animation great

Chuck Jones Charles Martin Jones (September 21, 1912 – February 22, 2002) was an American animator, director, and painter, best known for his work with Warner Bros. Cartoons on the '' Looney Tunes'' and '' Merrie Melodies'' series of shorts. He wrote, pro ...

had christened Thomas the "

Laurence Olivier Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier (; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the British stage ...

of animators."

Filmography

Films

Television series

Books (all with Johnston)

* '' Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life'' * ''Too Funny For Words: Disney's Greatest Sight Gags'' * ''The Disney Villain'' () * ''Bambi: The Story and the Film'', accompanied by a flip book

References

External links

*
Frank and Ollie's official site

Disney Legends

''Camouflage – A Cartoon in Technicolor''
World War II animated training film directed by Frank Thomas, via the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Frank 1912 births 2004 deaths Animators from California Articles containing video clips Dixieland pianists Firehouse Five Plus Two members First Motion Picture Unit personnel People from Fresno, California People from La Cañada Flintridge, California Walt Disney Animation Studios people Disney Legends