Iwao Takamoto

was an American animator, character designer, television producer, and film director. After his family had been sent to the California internment camps in the early 1940s, Takamoto learned to draw, presented his sketchbook to Walt Disney Productions and was hired on the spot.

Noted for his career as a production and character designer for Disney, on films including Cinderella (1950), Lady and the Tramp (1955), and Sleeping Beauty (1959), Takamoto subsequently moved to Hanna-Barbera Productions, where he designed a great majority of the characters, notably the characters Scooby-Doo and Astro. He eventually became a director and producer.

Early life and career Takamoto was born in Los Angeles, California. His father emigrated from Hiroshima to the United States for his health, and returned to Japan only once, to marry his wife. At 15 years of age, Takamoto graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School

Personal life Takamoto married Jane M. Shattuck in 1957. They met at Disney while working on the animated feature Sleeping Beauty (1959). They had one son together, Michael. In 1963, he met Barbara Farber, who was the assistant to the public relations director at Hanna-Barbera, Arnie Carr. Part of her job was studio tours, which was how she and Takamoto met. Takamoto married Barbara in 1964 and remained married to her for 44 years, until his death in 2007. Barbara had a daughter from a former marriage, Leslie. There was a memorial added to the end of the Scooby-Doo direct-to-video film Chill Out, Scooby-Doo! (2007).

Awards and legacy Takamoto received the Winsor McCay Award, the lifetime achievement award from the International Animated Film Association (ASIFA) Hollywood. He received an honorary citation from the Japanese American National Museum. In 2005, he was given a golden award from the Animation Guild.

Takamoto's memoirs were published posthumously in 2009 by University Press of Mississippi as Iwao Takamoto: My Life with a Thousand Characters by Iwao Takamoto and Michael Mallory. An intimate memoir, Living With A Legend, was published posthumously in 2012 by TotalRecall Press by his stepdaughter, Leslie E. Stern.