Julius Svendsen

Julius Svendsen (January 3, 1919 – August 26, 1971) was a Norwegian-born animator, storyboard artist, and comic book illustrator for Walt Disney Productions.

Biography Svendsen was born in 1919 to Frederick J. Svendsen and Mary Svendsen. When he was four, his family immigrated to the United States where they resided in Brooklyn, New York City. Svendsen attended Manual Training High School. After graduating from high school, he attended the Pratt Institute of Arts on a full scholarship from the New York Society of Illustrators.

Svendsen was hired by Walt Disney Productions in the Training Department on February 19, 1940. He soon became an inbetweener for Fantasia (1940) on August 26. He was promoted to assistant animator on Dumbo (1941).

For the Disneyland television series, Walt Disney asked Kimball to develop an episode centered on atomic energy, assigning Svendsen to work on the project. Svendsen and Kimball did initial story development on the project; however, by April 1954, they had shifted away from focusing on atomic energy and instead on space travel. The resulting project became the episode "Man in Space" (1955) for which Svendsen did animation for the space medicine segment.

In 1958, Svendsen also illustrated several Disney comic strips, including The Seven Dwarfs and the Witch-Queen and Sleeping Beauty that appeared in Sunday editions of American syndicated newspapers. Both strips were written by Floyd Gottfredson.

He returned to character animation for One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), The Saga of Windwagon Smith (1962), Scrooge McDuck and Money (1967), The Aristocats (1970), and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). He also storyboarded sequences on Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), The Aristocats, and Robin Hood (1973). A children's book titled Hulda was published posthumously in 1974, with the text written by his wife Carol and the illustration done by Julius.

Personal life Svendsen married Carol Joyner on December 17, 1949. They had two sons and two daughters, one of whom named Julie later worked for Walt Disney Imagineering.

Filmography Year Title Credits Notes 1940 Fantasia Inbetweener Uncredited 1941 Dumbo Assistant animator Uncredited 1950 Cinderella Character animator Uncredited 1951 Alice in Wonderland Character animator Uncredited 1953 Peter Pan Character animator Uncredited Melody (Short) Animator Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (Short) Animator 1955–1968 Disneyland Animator 14 episodes 1958 Grand Canyonscope (Short) Animator 1960 Goliath II (Short) Character animator Uncredited 1961 One Hundred and One Dalmatians Character animator 1962 The Saga of Windwagon Smith (Short) Character animator A Symposium on Popular Songs (Short) Character animator 1963 The Sword in the Stone Character animator Uncredited 1964 Mary Poppins Animator Uncredited 1967 Scrooge McDuck and Money (Short) Character animator The Jungle Book Character animator Uncredited 1968 Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (Short) Story 1970 The Aristocats Story / Character animator 1971 Bedknobs and Broomsticks Animator Released posthumously 1973 Robin Hood Story sequences by 1977 The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh Story Posthumous creditStory – "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day"