Monday, June 06, 2016

Animation Guild Golden Awards Interviews #27 -- Ken O'Brien and Lars Calonius

Ken O'Brien, like a lot of veteran animators of his age group, broke into the animation business in the middle 1930s, during the Disney hiring frenzy that occurred when the studio was ramping up production on Snow White.



Ken worked on a plethora of Disney projects through the forties and fifties, the last being Winnie the Pooh and a Day For Eeyore, which was the last Pooh theatrical featurette, produced in the early eighties by Rick Reinert's small studio for Disney. Ken passed away at the age of 74 in 1990. ...

Lars Calonius launched his animation career in 1935. Like Ken O'Brien, his launching pad was also Walt Disney Productions. Lars felt he was fortunate to get into Walt's place, saying "It was the best grouping of skilled and dedicated people that I've ever met."



Drafted into the Army during World War II, Calonius was shipped back east to the Signal Corps Photographic Center in New York. After demobilization, he set up his own studio on the East Coast, eventually selling it and returning west. His last animation project was Bill Melendez’s mini-series This Is America, Charlie Brown.

Lars Calonius passed away in 1995.

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