Wolfgang Reitherman (June 26, 1909 – May 22, 1985), also known and sometimes credited as Woolie Reitherman, was a German-American animator, director and producer. As a member of the "Nine Old Men" at Walt Disney Productions, Reitherman was known for his action-oriented animation.
Born in Munich, Reitherman relocated to the United States with his family. He attended Pasadena Junior College and briefly worked as a draftsman for Douglas Aircraft Company. Desiring a career in visual arts, Reitherman studied at the Chouinard Art Institute. On the advice of an art instructor, Reitherman applied as an animator for Walt Disney Productions. Reitherman animated on several Silly Symphonies cartoon shorts. He next animated the Slave in the Magic Mirror in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Monstro in Pinocchio (1940), and the climactic dinosaur fight in Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" segment of Fantasia (1940).
By 1941, the United States entered World War II, and Reitherman enlisted into the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). While in service, he flew on several combat missions and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. In 1947, Reitherman returned to the Disney studios as an animator, and within a few years, became a member of Disney's "Nine Old Men". He made his directorial debut with the 1957 short film The Truth About Mother Goose; within years, he became the first sole director for a Disney animated feature, beginning with The Sword in the Stone (1963).
During production on The Jungle Book (1967), Walt Disney died, and Reitherman assumed the creative leadership, remaining as director and producer on several consecutive Disney animated feature films throughout the 1970s. Additionally, he directed the Winnie the Pooh featurettes: Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966) and Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
By 1977, Reitherman had intended to direct The Fox and the Hound (1981), but he left the project after having creative differences with Art Stevens. After developing unproduced animation projects, Reitherman retired from Disney in 1981. In 1983, he was awarded the Winsor McCay Award, and in 1985, Reitherman died in a single-car accident. He was posthumously honored as a Disney Legend in 1989.
Wolfgang Reitherman was born on June 26, 1909, in Munich, German Empire to Philip Reitherman and Marie Keuhner. He was the last born of seven children. Philip and Marie had eloped and married in London and lived briefly in France, before returning to Munich. In 1911, owing to political unrest, the family relocated to the United States when he was a child, where they first settled in Kansas City, Missouri, where one of Philip's brothers had lived. At home, English was the preferred language, and as a result of his parents' assimilation, Wolfgang understood little German.
They next moved to Sierra Madre, California. As a young man, Reitherman had a passion for flying and aspired to become an aeronautical engineer; as a hobby, he drew cartoon gags. He attended Pasadena Junior College, but left to work as a draftsman for the Douglas Aircraft Company. By 1931, Reitherman had decided he would rather be an artist than an engineer, and soon enrolled into the Chouinard Art Institute.
1933–1946: Animator and military service
While Reitherman was studying at Chouinard Art Institute, his paintings attracted the attention of Philip L. Dike, a drawing and painting instructor. Impressed with his artwork, Dike showed them to Disney, after which Reitherman was invited to the studio. He initially wanted to work as a watercolorist, but Walt Disney suggested he should be an animator. Reitherman was hired at Walt Disney Productions on May 21, 1933. His first project as an animator was the Silly Symphonies cartoon Funny Little Bunnies (1934). Reitherman worked on numerous animated shorts, including The Band Concert (1935), Music Land (1935), and Elmer Elephant (1936). He animated the Slave in the Magic Mirror in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).
Reitherman's next assignments were animating Monstro in Pinocchio (1940) and the climactic dinosaur fight in Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" segment of Fantasia (1940). The night he had finished his animation, Reitherman attended a Christmas staff party and played a tape recording of Stravinsky's piece in reverse. He remembered, "anyway, there's a knock on the door, and someone goes over to answer it, and standing there is Walt ... with Igor Stravinsky. But, he [Stravinsky] was very nice. He said, 'Sounds good backwards, too.' and left."
Reitherman then followed up with animating several scenes of Timothy Q. Mouse in Dumbo (1941). In December 1941, Pearl Harbor was bombed, and Reitherman, at the age of 32, enlisted into the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) as a pilot. While in service, he participated in the Air Transport Command in Africa, China, India, and the Philippines. Reitherman remembered living in China at one point, stating, "I was flying all the time, so I wasn't there all that time. A wonderful country. Wonderful people." He was honorably discharged in February 1946, having earned the military rank of Major. After several years of service, Reitherman was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with one bronze oak leaf cluster.
Reitherman rejoined the Disney studios in April 1947, where he animated the Headless Horseman chase sequence in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow section of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949), alongside John Sibley. Around this time, Reitherman claimed he was instrumental in helping Walt Disney commit to producing Cinderella (1950) as an animated film. After he had glanced at some storyboards, Reitherman recalled, "I just went in his office, which I rarely did, and I said, 'Gee, that looks great. We ought to do it.' It might have been a little nudge to say, 'Hey, let's get going again and let's do a feature'."
On Cinderella, Reitherman was the directing animator of the sequence in which Jaq and Gus laboriously push and pull the key up the stairs to Cinderella. By this point, Disney began devoting less time and energy into animation, as he sought to expand into developing an amusement theme park and television projects. Nine veteran animators—Les Clark, Marc Davis, Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, Ward Kimball, Eric Larson, John Lounsbery, Reitherman, and Frank Thomas—began to consolidate and were known as the "Nine Old Men", in reference to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's denigration of the Supreme Court. As it became harder to get Disney to attend story meetings, animation responsibilities was increasingly left to their creative judgment.
On Alice in Wonderland (1951), Reitherman animated the scene in which the White Rabbit's home is destroyed by an enlarged Alice. On Peter Pan (1953), he animated the scene of Captain Hook attempting to escape the crocodile. For Lady and the Tramp (1955), Reitherman animated the alley dog fight sequence and Tramp's fight with the rat in the nursery room. Animation historian Charles Solomon praised the alley sequence, writing, it is "a textbook example of a Reitherman fight scene: Tramp defeats a pack of vicious mongrels to save Lady, helpless in her muzzle." Reitherman also appeared as himself in a Disneyland episode "A Story of Dogs", reenacting a production meeting about the alley dog fight sequence, which aired on December 1, 1954.
Theatrical shorts, Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians
In 1957, Reitherman made his directorial debut with the short film The Truth About Mother Goose, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, but it lost to the Merrie Melodies cartoon Birds Anonymous. He later joined the production team working on Sleeping Beauty (1959). Reitherman's colleague Eric Larson had been the film's sole director until he was removed from the project by 1957. Clyde Geronimi became the film's new supervising director. Reitherman joined the project as a sequence director for Prince Phillip's climactic fight against Maleficent as a dragon. Years later, in 1981, Reitherman told the Los Angeles Times: "We took the approach that we were going to kill that damned prince!" Released in 1959, Sleeping Beauty underperformed at the box office and earned mixed reviews from film critics. Bosley Crowther, in his New York Times review, warned the dragon fight sequence "will make a few adults groan. Mr. Disney here reaches the apex of his build-up of animated horror." The fight sequence has since been praised as among the finest in Disney animation.