In the final Chapman University Walt Disney Studies Speaker Series event for this academic year, documentary director Theodore Thomas, son of celebrated Disney animator and one of the “Nine Old Men” Frank Thomas, will host the unique and rarely seen documentary, Growing Up with Nine Old Men, a fascinating story about what childhood was like within this rarefied creative “family.”
Thomas will introduce this 2013 documentary featurette, and after the screening will discuss his unique connection to Walt Disney and to Disney’s golden era of animation, and reveal intimate insights into one of the studio’s most storied creative collectives.
The “Nine Old Men” was a core group of Disney animators who worked at the Studio from the 1920s to the 1980s — the group was named by Walt Disney himself as a play on the nickname of FDR’s Supreme Court. Some of the Nine Old Men also worked as directors, creating some of Disney’s most popular animated movies, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to The Rescuers.
According to John Canemaker, animation historian, Oscar-winning animator, and professor of film animation at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, the Nine Old Men were the backbone of Disney’s animation department, instrumental in developing and refining the art of character animation and establishing the basic principles of the medium, which continue to be used today.
The final event in the four-month-long series, curated by acclaimed Disney historian Jeff Kurtti, is open to the public, admission is free, and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis on Friday, May 16 at 7 p.m. in the Sandhu Conference Center located at 571 N. Grand St., Orange, California.
More info available at news.chapman.edu.
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