Patrick Peter O'Sullivan (February 22, 1885 – February 15, 1933) was an Australian-American cartoonist, pioneer animator and film producer, best known for producing the first Felix the Cat silent cartoons.
Patrick Peter O'Sullivan was born on Ivry Street in the Paddington suburb of Sydney, Australia on February 22, 1885. He was the second son of Patrick O’Sullivan - an Irish immigrant who was said to be "Sydney's oldest cab driver" - and his Sydney-born wife Margaret O'Sullivan (née Hayes). Pat had an older brother named William, and remembered how they would both watch his father and uncle break the horses in.
Sullivan's family grew up in the working-class suburb of Darlinghurst. From a young age Sullivan enjoyed drawing, but his parents tried to discourage him with his father feeling he would not be able to make a living, and his mother once telling him: "What's the use of drawing silly bits on a piece of paper?"
During his childhood, Sullivan's mother died, and he and his brother were raised by their father. Sullivan was educated by the Marist Brothers at St. Benedict's School in Chippendale, and later St. Mary's Cathedral Boys' School in Woolloomooloo. As a child Sullivan produced a newspaper with some friends called Blowflies. One of Sullivan's childhood friends, Tom Doyle, recalled how he, Pat and William, would earn extra money performing outside of hotels.
After graduating from High School, Sullivan worked as a gatekeeper at Toohey's Brewery in Surry Hills, and attended classes at the Art Society of New South Wales. Sullivan eventually contributed occasional cartoons and illustrations to newspapers and magazines, such as The Australian Worker, The Gadfly and The Bulletin, as well as short-lived a humour magazine called Vumps which he co-founded. As Sullivan remembered: "The happiest moment of my life was when my first cartoon was published."
It was around this time he dropped the "O" from his surname, most likely to avoid anti-Irish sentiment of the time.
In 1907, the then 22-year-old Sullivan left Australia to find more prosperous work in London. He was unsuccessful, and ended up homeless, often spending his nights sleeping on the Thames Embankment. When he was finally able to sell some drawings on Fleet Street for a few shillings each, he found lodgings in South London. As he recalled: "In one of them my landlady used to drink my whiskey when I was out. So I wrote the word 'poison' in large letters on the label. But she still went on drinking the whisky. I found out, afterwards, that she could not read." This anecdote is the earliest documentation of Sullivan's alcoholism. Sullivan ultimately sold a few cartoons to humorous weekly magazines such as Ally Sloper's Half Holiday and Sketchy Bits, as well as newspapers like London Bulletin and the Daily Mail.
Unsatisfied with the meagre earnings from these cartoons, Sullivan then began appearing in London Music Hall doing a song-and-dance act with his friend George Clardey - who later became an animator at Sullivan's studio. As Otto Messmer later remembered of Sullivan and Clardey's act: "Sullivan would come out [on stage] and he would draw a face. They had some trick where Clardy on the other side [of the drawing board] - the face would animate. They would substitute a red balloon [for a nose]. Blow it up." This act was ultimately a failure, and Sullivan then turned to business side of theatre managing, becoming one of the first motion picture exhibitors in England. However this endeavour was also unsuccessful and Sullivan ended up going bankrupt. Out of desperation, Sullivan spent the next year working on-and-off as a mule herder, helping to ship the animals from England to Missouri, United States.
In 1909, while the ship was docked in New York Harbour, Sullivan jumped ship and swam to shore. He remained in New York City for the rest of his life. As Sullivan recalled, his first job in America was as a shoeshiner, as he remembered:
"The first job I went after in New York was that of a shoeshine. The advertisement directed one to apply to 'Mike'. I walked from 22nd street to 125th street, hoping to find a sympathetic Irishman who would give me the job. I found ‘Mike’ to be an Italian. Shoe shiners, glorying in Irish names there, are generally Italians."
Eventually having grown "hard and strong" from herding mules, Sullivan then tried professional boxing, however after a while he ultimately decided it was too intense for him.
In 1911, Sullivan finally began to find some success when he landed a job at the struggling McClure Syndicate. After spending three years working on-and-off at McClure, Sullivan became one of several assistants to William F. Marriner on his comic strip Sambo and His Funny Noises - starring a stereotypical African American child based on the character of Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman. Sullivan worked well as Marriner's assistant, since their art styles were very similar and they were both alcoholics. During this time Sullivan also created his own comic strips, Willing Waldo – He Wants Work and Old Pop Perkins. Animation historian John Canemaker describes Sullivan's artwork in these strips as poor: "Sullivan's penline is thin, his characters circular, the action minimal, and the staging stilted. Walking characters are usually shown in extreme profile, one foot thrust forward. A slight variation is used to simulate the agitated movements of a chase: characters in profile, both legs spread wide, with action lines and dust and sweat symbols to indicate speed and exertion. Backgrounds are simple, often containing a titled line to represent a landscape that holds a tree or, more often, a triangle-roofed house with a line of smoke curling out of a chimney."
On the evening of October 8, 1914, while at his summer home in Harrington Park near Hackensack, New Jersey, Marriner's wife caught him drinking, and decided to leave him. Distraught, Marriner then committed suicide by burning the house down with himself inside. His charred remains were found the next morning. After Marriner's death, Sullivan ghosted the Sambo and His Funny Noises strip, but without Marriner's involvement the strip declined in popularity and was cancelled by the end of the year.
After Marriner's death, Sullivan began to be intrigued by the newly popular medium of animation - popularised by Winsor McCay's Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) - and early animation studios began to emerge in New York. Around late-1914 Sullivan used his salesmanship skills to obtain on the job at the Raoul Barré studio in Fordham, Bronx. Sullivan began learning the craft of animation from Gregory La Cava, Frank Moser and Bill Nolan (who would later become an animator at his studio) while working on The Animated Grouch Chasers series. As animation historian Michael Barrier writes of Sullivan's animation: "to judge by from such surviving evidence as his 1919... cartoon called Origin of Shimmie, never a very good one." Sullivan was ultimately fired after only nine months "...as his work was unsatisfactory...", however he still gained valuable knowledge about animation production.
Sullivan then briefly worked for the International Film Service, an animation studio set up by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst to create animated adaptations of his popular comic strips, and was hiring away many of Barré's former animators. During this time Sullivan became acquainted with Pat Powers - the then treasurer of Universal Pictures - who was putting together a screen magazine for the studio. Powers convinced Sullivan to open his own animation studio, for which Universal would provide financial backing and distribute his films.
In mid-1915 Sullivan opened his own animation studio on 121 West 42nd Street. Sullivan decided to make an animated adaptation of Marriner's Sambo and His Funny Noises strip, however changed the character's name to Sammy Johnsin in order to avoid paying Marriner's family and estate royalties.
Sullivan would photograph his drawings at Universal's backlot in Fort Lee, New Jersey, since at the time the studio allowed anyone to use their camera equipment and facilities for a small fee. It was here where Sullivan was shown a test-film called Motor Matt by an aspiring young animator named Otto Messmer. Sullivan immediately offered Messmer a job, but Messmer initially turned it down in favour of working with renowned newspaper cartoonist Hy Mayer on an elaborate commercial film for Auerbach's Chocolates called The Travels of Teddy - starring a caricatured version of Mayer's personal friend, former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. After Messmer's work on Travels of Teddy was complete in early-1916, Messmer accepted Sullivan's job offer. By this point the Sullivan Studio had moved its location to the nearby building at 125 West 42nd Street.