Ken Anderson

Kenneth B. "Ken" Anderson (March 17, 1909 – December 13, 1993) was an American animator, art director, and storyboard artist for The Walt Disney Company. He had been named by Walt Disney as his "jack of all trades".

Born in Seattle, Anderson studied architecture at the University of Washington. He later studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and the American Academy in Rome. When he returned to the United States, Anderson worked for six weeks at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) before joining the Disney studios in 1934. He worked as an inbetweener and was later promoted to an animator. His first major assignment was the Silly Symphonies short film Three Orphan Kittens (1935). He later moved to the layout department. For Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Anderson designed layouts, experimented with the multiplane camera, and built a model of the dwarfs' cottage.

Anderson served again as an art director on Pinocchio (1940) and Fantasia (1940) for "The Pastoral Symphony" Segment. Anderson worked closely with Mary Blair in adapting her visual style for The Three Caballeros (1945) and Song of the South (1946). He also worked on the story development for Melody Time (1948), So Dear to My Heart (1948), and Cinderella (1950).

During the 1950s, Anderson joined Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI), then known as WED Enterprises, in which he designed several Fantasyland "dark rides" for the Disneyland theme park. He subsequently worked as a production designer on Sleeping Beauty (1959) and introduced the xerography technique for One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). He later contributed background and character designs for The Jungle Book (1967), The Aristocats (1970), Robin Hood (1973), The Rescuers (1977), and Pete's Dragon (1977). He retired in 1978, but he rejoined WED Enterprises a year later to help renovate Fantasyland. On December 13, 1993, Anderson died from a stroke.

Early life and education Anderson was born in Seattle on March 17, 1909. He was the son of Luther Anderson Sr., a lumber merchant, and Ethel Way. He had two sisters, Ruth and Roberta. When Anderson was three years old, his family moved to the Philippines (then a territory of the United States). While sailing back to the United States in 1919, his father died from malaria, leaving the family destitute. Anderson's sister, Ruth, also died during this time. Anderson's mother sent him to live with his uncle who abused him, which forced him to run away and lived in the woods. "I figured life was too damn hard," he recalled, "so I found a log cabin and caught 127 trout for my dinner and lived there for a month before they found me." Meanwhile, Anderson's mother Ethel finished her training as a schoolteacher and was hired for a teaching position in Seattle. His mother reclaimed him, and at age twelve, he began working several minor jobs to put himself through school.

Anderson studied architecture at the University of Washington. He then won a scholarship where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts at Fontainebleu in Fontainebleau, France, to which he claimed no one west of the Mississippi River had obtained before. He later studied at the American Academy in Rome for two and a half years. Anderson returned to the United States in 1933 during the Great Depression.

Career 1933–1942: the Silly Symphonies, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia Due to a scarcity in architectural jobs, Anderson worked at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) on The Painted Veil (1934) and What Every Woman Knows (1934) for six weeks as a set designer. He recalled his time at MGM was "a most unhappy experience" and his wife was "fed up with our living on credit." One day, when Anderson and his wife Polly were driving around the Disney studios near Hyperion Avenue, she said, "Why don't you go in there and get a job?" He refused at first, to which she fought back: "You need a job. We've got to have a job. We're living off these canned beans down at the beach and we can't keep doing that."

Anderson returned to the studio and showed Walt Disney his watercolor architectural paintings, which impressed Disney. The next day, he was given a two weeks' apprenticeship in the inbetween department. Polly herself worked as a painter in the Ink and Paint department for three years until she became pregnant with her first daughter. On September 3, 1934, Anderson began working as an inbetweener doing fill-in scenes with other junior animators, including Milt Kahl, Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas, Jack Hannah, and James Algar. His first projects were the Silly Symphonies short films, including The Goddess of Spring (1934) and Three Little Wolves (1936), and Mickey's Polo Team (1936).

Disney admired Anderson's skill in perspective drawing and selected him to animate on the Silly Symphonies short Three Orphan Kittens (1935). Anderson recalled, "[Walt Disney] gave me several scenes in Three Orphan Kittens, in which I animated the kittens and the backgrounds. The camera traveled along with the kittens at their eye level to show the surroundings as they saw it." The short won the 1935 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons).

After Three Orphan Kittens, Disney offered Anderson a position in the layout department, headed by Charles Phillippi and Hugh Hennesy. One evening, in 1934, Anderson was first notified of Disney's plans for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) when Disney acted out the entire story to his animation staff on a soundstage. Feeling motivated by Disney's performance, Disney assigned Anderson, alongside special effects animator Cy Young, lighting expert Hal Halvenston and engineer Bill Garity, to design moving backgrounds for an animation test of a peddler woman in the forest, meant to display actual depth and perspective. Using an experimental multiplane camera, Anderson drew three planes of animated trees, which were placed on large glass plates, and had the team experiment with distances. Disney was pleased with the results and ordered further animation tests of the dwarfs' cottage and Snow White.

For the sequence, Anderson built a full-size miniature of the dwarfs' cottage and its interior to assist the background and layout artists. Live-action reference footage was then filmed of dancer Marge Champion (performing as Snow White) wearing a "black heavy dress" against a white screen background. Disney was pleased with the footage, wanting the camera movement and staging translated directly onto animation cels. Anderson further contributed by creating layouts and conceptual sketches for the "Someday My Prince Will Come" dream sequence; however, it was ultimately cut during the storyboarding phase. He was also the inspiration behind the dwarf Dopey's wiggling ears. Before any live action was shot, Anderson had previsualized the segments through thumbnail sketches, which he gave the animators for their agreement. Filming began in Phoenix, Arizona in December 1944. Jackson remembered, "Ken helped set the camera angles and work out the staging of the thing, and Ken worked so hard with me on working out the details of how to fit the combination sequences, where the live action and cartoon work, together." However, much to Jackson's surprise, Disney was not satisfied because they did not replicate enough of Blair's style. Anderson later worked on the story development for Melody Time (1948) and So Dear to My Heart (1948).

1950–1959: Cinderella, Disneyland, Sleeping Beauty In 1947, Walt Disney decided to return to feature-length animated films, with Cinderella (1950) selected as the inaugural project. For the film, Anderson worked on the story adaptation, collaborating with Bill Peet. Anderson had stated Peet focused on the characters, while he concentrated on the production design. Anderson next did the color styling for Alice in Wonderland (1951).

On Sleeping Beauty (1959), Anderson served as the film's production designer. Kay Nielsen was the film's initial art director, in which he created "soft pastel" styling sketches. Anderson was impressed with Neilsen's artwork, though he felt that Nielsen's paintings would be difficult to translate into animation. Disney tasked John Hench to help interpret Nielsen's artwork with opaque cel paint, but Nielsen left the studio by 1953. Disney later hired Eyvind Earle as the new art director. Earle's conceptual paintings impressed the layout artists and animators, though they complained his style was too rigid and modernist. Anderson complained, "I had to fight myself to make myself draw that way."

In 1952, Disney founded the research and development company Walt Disney Inc. (WDI), known today as Walt Disney Imagineering. To design and build the Disneyland theme park, Disney selected several animation staff members, including Anderson, Hench, Bob Gurr, and Roger Broggie as his initial "Imagineers". Anderson collaborated with Claude Coats on the Fantasyland "dark rides", including Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Peter Pan's Flight, and Snow White and Her Adventures. The process began with Anderson and Coats designing the sets and interiors, in which they eschewed the title character and placed the audience in their perspective, while Bill Martin designed the track layout.

By 1956, Anderson returned to work on Sleeping Beauty when the film's production resumed. He storyboarded the battle sequence between Prince Philip and Maleficent. To match with the action, he listened to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1889 ballet The Sleeping Beauty.

1960–1966: One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, death of Walt Disney The commercial failure of Sleeping Beauty (1959) initially discouraged Disney from producing more feature-length animated films, wherein the closure of the animation department was considered. Despite this, Disney assigned Anderson to work on One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). While designing the film's visual style, Anderson learned about a television production studio—Hurrell Productions—was using xerography to produce television ads featuring Disney characters. Inspired by the technique, Anderson experimented with a Xerox photocopier to directly transfer the animators' drawings onto transparent cels, thereby eliminating the inking process. Anderson screened an animation test to Disney and the animators; although Disney expressed concern at the graphic style, he gave his approval stating: "Ah, yeah, yeah, you can fool around all you want to." Furthermore, Anderson applied xerography with the background artwork to match the character animation, giving the film a unified visual style.

As early as 1956, Anderson had begun developing story sketches based on the Reynard the Fox legend. In 1960, Anderson and animator Marc Davis decided to adapt the medieval fable Chanticleer and the Fox into an animated film. Both men spent months developing elaborate storyboards and preliminary character artwork. They had presented their pitch before Disney and several studio executives, in which one voice said: "You can't make a personality out of a chicken." Further development was halted when during a meeting, on August 24, Disney remarked that the problem with making a rooster a protagonist was "[you] don't feel like picking a rooster up and petting it."

Released in 1961, One Hundred and One Dalmatians became a critical and commercial success, earning nearly $10 million during its initial domestic release. The animators had been pleased with the film's linear animation quality, but Walt Disney felt it lacked the delicacy and care of his earlier animated films. In a subsequent meeting with the animation staff concerning future films, Disney harshly criticized the Dalmatians art direction and further stated, "Ken's never going to be an art director again." Anderson was hurt by the criticism and further stated Disney did not speak to him for a year.

In 1962, Anderson suffered two strokes in one week, which partially paralyzed the right side of his body for nearly three years. He recovered with help from his wife Polly. As part of his recuperation, Anderson exercised and visited the Descanso Gardens, near his home at La Cañada Flintridge, California, for solace and comfort. Before Disney's death in December 1966, Anderson remembered his last meeting:

1967–1978: The Aristocats, Robin Hood, Pete's Dragon Following Disney's death, Anderson continued as art director on The Aristocats. He simplified the plot to focus more on the cats, including paring down the number of characters. By April 1967, the studio had arrived at a working story outline. Anderson agreed, and was tasked to create character designs for Elliott, an animated dragon character that interacted with the human characters. For Elliott, Anderson took visual inspiration from the Chinese dragon and actor Wallace Beery. In 1985, Anderson's contract with WED Enterprises was renewed, in which he later consulted on the proposed Equatorial Africa Pavilion for the EPCOT Center.

During the 1980s, Anderson returned to animation, in which he submitted conceptual artwork for several animated series including Dumbo's Circus, Adventures of the Gummi Bears, and The Wuzzles. He also traveled to Japan to draw storyboards for Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1989). He had been awarded a Winsor McCay Award in 1982. In 1991, Anderson was inducted as a Disney Legend.

Personal life and death Anderson met Polly at the University of Washington, and they were married during the summer of 1934. They had three daughters named Sue, Judy and Wendy.

Filmography Year Title Credits Refs 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Art Director 1940 Pinocchio Lady and the Tramp Layout Artist 1959 Sleeping Beauty Production Designer 1961 One Hundred and One Dalmatians Art Director / Production Designer 1963 The Sword in the Stone Art Director 1966 Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (Short) Story 1967 The Jungle Book Story 1970 The Aristocats Story / Production Designer 1973 Robin Hood Based on Character and Story Conceptions by / Story Sequences 1977 The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh Story The Rescuers Story Pete's Dragon Creator: "Elliott" / Animation Art Director 1989 Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland Story Sketches