BIO
Iwerks was considered by many to be Walt Disney's oldest friend, and spent most of his career with Disney. He was responsible for the distinctive style of the earliest Disney
animated cartoons. In 1922, when Walt began his
Laugh-O-Gram cartoon series, Iwerks joined him as chief animator. The Studio went bankrupt, however, and in 1923, Iwerks followed Disney's move to Los Angeles to work on a new series of cartoons known as the
Alice Comedies. After the end of this series, Disney asked Iwerks to come up with a new character. The first
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was animated entirely by Ub Iwerks. Following the first cartoon, Oswald was redesigned on the insistence of Universal, who agreed to distribute the new series of cartoons in 1927.
In the spring of 1928, Disney lost control of the Oswald character, and much of his staff was hired away. Disney asked Ub Iwerks, who stayed on, to start drawing up new character ideas. Iwerks tried sketches of frogs, dogs, and cats, but none of these appealed to Disney. A female cow and male horse were created at this time by Iwerks, but were also rejected. They would later turn up as
Clarabelle Cow and
Horace Horsecollar.
[1] Ub Iwerks eventually got inspiration from an old drawing. In 1925,
Hugh Harman drew some sketches of mice around a photograph of Walt Disney. These inspired Ub Iwerks to create a new mouse character for Disney, eventually called
Mickey Mouse.
[2] Thus, in a very real sense, Iwerks can be called true the creator of
Mickey Mouse because Iwerks, and not Disney, originated the character.
The first few Mickey Mouse cartoons were animated almost entirely by Iwerks. Walt Disney understood the value of Ub so much that Ub made twice what Walt was making. Walt would make $75.00 a week and Ub would make $150.00 a week. Eventually, however, Iwerks and Disney had a falling out, and their friendship was severed when Iwerks accepted a contract with a competitor to leave Disney and start an animation studio under his own name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sinbadthesailor01.jpg
Sinbad the Sailor - 1935
The Iwerks Studio opened in
1930. Financial backers led by
Pat Powers suspected that Iwerks was responsible for much of Disney's early success. However, while animation for a time suffered at Disney from Iwerks' departure, it soon rebounded as Disney brought in talented new young animators.
Despite a contract with MGM to distribute his cartoons, and the introduction of a new character named
Flip the Frog, and later
Willie Whopper, the Iwerks Studio was never a major commercial success and failed to rival either Disney or
Fleischer Studios, despite Iwerks' cartoons being technically superior, and more intellectually sophisticated in many ways[
citation needed]. Backers withdrew further financial support from Iwerks Studio in
1936, and it folded soon after.
In 1937,
Leon Schlesinger Productions contracted Iwerks to produce four
Looney Tunes shorts starring
Porky Pig and
Gabby Goat. Iwerks directed the first two shorts, while former Schlesinger animator
Robert Clampett was promoted to director and helmed the other two shorts before he and his unit returned to the main Schlesinger lot. Iwerks then did contract work for
Screen Gems (then
Columbia Pictures' cartoon division) before returning to work for Disney in
1940. The cartoons created by Iwerks' own studio remained largely unseen for many decades, but have been released to
DVD by
Image Entertainment on their series titled
Cartoons That Time Forgot.
After his return to
Disney Studios, Iwerks mainly worked on developing special visual effects. He is credited as developing the processes for combining live action and animation used in
Song of the South (
1946), as well as the xerographic process adapted for cel animation. He also worked at WED Enterprises, now
Walt Disney Imagineering, helping to develop many Disney theme park attractions during the 1960s. Iwerks did special effects work outside the studio as well, including his
Academy Award nominated achievement for
Alfred Hitchcock's
The Birds (
1963).
Iwerks' most famous work outside creating and animating
Mickey Mouse was
Flip the Frog for his own studio. The Flip The Frog cartoons are much admired by fans of classic animation, and have now acquired a cult following.
Iwerks was known for his fast work at drawing and animation and his wacky sense of humor. Animator
Chuck Jones, who worked for Iwerks' studio in his youth, said "Iwerks is
Screwy spelled backwards." Ub Iwerks died in 1971 of a
heart attack in
Burbank, California, aged 70.
A documentary film,
The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story was released in
1999, followed by a book written by Leslie Iwerks and John Kenworthy in
2001. The documentary, created by Iwerks' granddaughter Leslie Iwerks, was released as part of
The Walt Disney Treasures, Wave VII series