Ralph Guggenheim (born June 6, 1951) is an American video graphics designer and film producer. He won a

Producers Guild of America Award The Producers Guild of America Awards were originally established in 1990 by the Producers Guild of America as the Golden Laurel Awards, created by PGA Treasurer Joel Freeman with the support of Guild President Leonard Stern, in order to honor ...

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

for his contributions to the film ''

Toy Story ''Toy Story'' is a 1995 American computer-animated comedy film directed by John Lasseter (in his feature directorial debut), produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The first installment in the '' Toy Story ...

''.

Biography

He was born in

New Rochelle, New York New Rochelle (; older french: La Nouvelle-Rochelle) is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the southeastern portion of the state. In 2020, the city had a population of 79,726, making it the seventh-largest in the state o ...

to Hanneleis Feibelmann, a German-Jewish

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

survivor, and Jules Guggenheim, a Swiss-born businessman. Guggenheim excelled in his studies at

New Rochelle High School New Rochelle High School (NRHS) is a public high school in New Rochelle, New York. It is part of the City School District of New Rochelle and is the city's sole public high school. Its student body represents 60 countries from around the world. I ...

and earned admission to

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

. At Carnegie Mellon University, Guggenheim became interested in photography and worked for the University. After graduating with a degree in communications from CMU, Guggenheim stayed in Pittsburgh and graduated in 1977 with a Masters in Computer Science. After his time at CMU, Ralph worked for the New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab. He was soon contacted by Lucasfilm and moved to California in 1980. During his time at Lucasfilm, Guggenheim developed EditDroid, which proved to be a revolutionary film-editing system. After his research lab at Lucasfilm was sold to

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; ...

and renamed Pixar, Guggenheim continued to work in the world of graphics and animation. Guggenheim, a respected founder of Pixar, eventually became Vice President of Feature Animation and co-produced ''

'' alongside Bonnie Arnold.Price, David A., "The Pixar Touch", Knopf, 2008, Guggenheim left the company in 1997 after Disney forced Pixar to remove him as producer from ''

Toy Story 2 ''Toy Story 2'' is a 1999 American computer-animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The second installment in the ''Toy Story'' franchise and the sequel to '' Toy Story'' (1995), it was directed by John ...

''. Since his time at Pixar, Guggenheim has worked as an executive at Electronic Arts. After his time at Electronic Arts, Guggenheim started Alligator Planet LLC with three other partners. Guggenheim is currently the CEO of Alligator Planet.

References

External links

* {{Electronic Arts 1951 births American film producers Carnegie Mellon University alumni Computer graphics professionals Electronic Arts employees Living people Lucasfilm people Artists from New Rochelle, New York New York Institute of Technology faculty Pixar people New Rochelle High School alumni