Ward Kimball

Ward Kimball

Ward Kimball drawing Pecos Bill from Melody Time
Born Ward Walrath Kimball
March 4, 1914
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Died July 8, 2002 (aged 88)
Los Angeles, California, USA
Occupation Animator
Walt Disney Studios
Years active 1935–1980
Awards Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film

Ward Walrath Kimball (March 4, 1914 – July 8, 2002), born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was an animator for the Walt Disney Studios. He was one of Walt Disney's team of animators, known as Disney's Nine Old Men.

Also, he was a jazz trombonist. He founded and led the seven-piece Dixieland band Firehouse Five Plus Two, in which he played trombone.

Career

While Kimball was a brilliant draftsman, he preferred to work on comical characters rather than realistic human designs. Animating came easily to him and he was constantly looking to do things differently. Because of this, Walt Disney called Ward a genius in the book The Story of Walt Disney. While there were many talented animators at Disney, Ward's efforts stand out as unique.

Kimball created several classic Disney characters including the Crows in Dumbo; Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland; the Mice, Lucifer the Cat and Bruno the Bloodhound from Cinderella; and Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio. He also animated the famous "Three Caballeros" musical number from the Disney film of the same name.

In 1953 Kimball became a director and was responsible for the Academy Award-winning short Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom, and three Disney television shows about outer space that put the United States into the space program. He received an Academy Award for the short animated cartoon It's Tough to Be a Bird.[1]

Kimball was profiled by producer Jerry Fairbanks in his Paramount Pictures film short series Unusual Occupations.[2] This 35mm Magnacolor film short was released theatrically in 1944; it focused on Kimball's backyard railroad and full-sized locomotive.

Kimball was also a jazz trombonist. He founded and led the seven-piece Dixieland band Firehouse Five Plus Two, in which he played trombone. The band made at least 13 LP records and toured clubs, college campuses and jazz festivals from the 1940s to early 1970s. Kimball once said that Walt Disney permitted the second career as long as it did not interfere with his animation work.

Kimball continued to work at Disney until 1974, working on the Disney anthology television series, being one of the writers for Babes in Toyland, creating animation for Mary Poppins, directing the animation for Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and working on titles for feature films such as The Adventures Of Bullwhip Griffin and Million Dollar Duck. His last staff work for Disney was producing and directing the Disney TV show The Mouse Factory, which ran from 1972 to 1974. He continued to do various projects on his own, even returning to do some publicity tours for the Disney corporation. He also worked on the World of Motion attraction for Disney's EPCOT Center.

Kimball also produced two editions of a volume titled Art Afterpieces,[3] in which he revised various well-known works of art, such as putting Mona Lisa's hair up in curlers, showing Whistler's Mother watching TV, and adding a Communist flag and Russian boots to Pinkie.

While his only two acting appearances on film were an uncredited role as a jazz musician (with his Firehouse Five Plus Two) in Hit Parade of 1951 and as an IRS Chief in Mike Jittlov's The Wizard of Speed and Time, Kimball served as host of the "Man and the Moon" episode of Disneyland in 1956. He appeared as himself in an episode of the popular TV show You Bet Your Life hosted by Groucho Marx on March 18, 1954, which has been released on DVD. He hosted the second season of the 1992 PBS series Tracks Ahead. That season has since been repackaged to feature current host Spencer Christian.

As recounted in Neal Gabler's biography of Walt Disney,[4] Ward Kimball was a key figure in spreading the urban legend that Disney had left instructions for his body to be preserved by cryonics after his death.

Amid Amidi wrote a biography of Kimball, Full Steam Ahead: The Life and Art of Ward Kimball that was projected for publication in the fall of 2012.[5] However, publication of the biography was cancelled in February 2013, which Amidi believed was due to pressure from the Disney corporation.[6]

Animator

Note: At the time these films were produced it was common for one animator to animate every single character in the shot.

Grizzly Flats Railroad

Along with his employer and friend Walt Disney, and friend Ollie Johnston, Kimball collected old railroad ephemera. He was an avid railway enthusiast and donated his 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge collection to the Orange Empire Railway Museum (OERM) in Perris, California. A full-size steam locomotive, which Kimball ran on his private 3-acre (12,000 m2) backyard railroad known as "Grizzly Flats Railroad" in San Gabriel, California, bears some of his original artwork on the headlamp and cab, and is on permanent display at the museum.[7] Kimball was also an avid collector of model trains.

Kimball is credited with helping Walt Disney for the inspiration to install the Disneyland Railroad at Disneyland. Inspiration for the Disneyland Railroad also partly came from Disney's personal 7 1⁄4 in (184 mm) gauge, live steam backyard Carolwood Pacific Railroad, which Kimball had partially constructed. Kimball's Grizzly Flats train station served as the model for the Disneyland Frontierland Train Station. As a tribute to Kimball, Engine No. 5 of the Disneyland Railroad is called Ward Kimball.[7]

Emma Nevada locomotive at the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, California

Kimball's talents are also evident in the reproduction steam locomotives built for the National Park Service at the Golden Spike site at Promontory, Utah. Kimball helped match colors with an engine at the Smithsonian Institution and painted the artwork for the replicas of the Union Pacific No. 119 and Central Pacific Jupiter built by O'Connor Engineering Laboratories for the Park Service.[8]

In recognition to his love of railroading and support of the Orange Empire Railway Museum, the Perris Transit Center, where OERM historic trains travel to, is dedicated to Mr. Kimball. In a rare deviation from its usually tight copyright policy, the Disney corporation allowed the city to decorate the transit center with Kimball's artwork. The center is currently served by Riverside Transit Agency buses, with train service as part of the Metrolink Perris Valley Line.[9]

The Ward Kimball pulls into New Orleans Square Station at Disneyland.

Death

Kimball died in 2002 in Los Angeles, California of complications from pneumonia at age 88. In 2005 the Disneyland Railroad named its newly acquired Engine №5 the "Ward Kimball" in his memory.[10][11][12]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "It's Tough to be a Bird". 2008. Retrieved 6 January 2008.
  2. ↑ Unusual Occupations L-5-2 at the Internet Movie Database
  3. ↑ Art Afterpieces, ISBN 978-0-8431-0366-3
  4. ↑ Gabler, Neal: Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (Random House, 2007).
  5. ↑ Pre-Order “Full Steam Ahead!,” the Ward Kimball Biography
  6. ↑ Amid Amidi: "Yes, Chronicle Books nixed the publication of my book.... Yes, it's my opinion that Disney’s pressure caused Chronicle to kill the project.... Yes, I am amused by the Disney Company's inept attempt to control the personal histories of its artists...."
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Broggie, Michael, Walt Disney's Railroad Story, Virginia Beach, VA: The Donning Company Publishers, 2006 (2nd edn), pp. 52-59, 200.
  8. ↑ Dowty, Robert R., Rebirth of the Jupiter and the 119: Building the Replica Locomotives at Golden Spike, Tucson, AZ: Southwest Parks & Monuments Association, 1994, p. 35.
  9. ↑ New Perris Transit Center to Honor Ward Kimball - Phase 1 Grand Opening, Cityofperris.org
  10. ↑ Mello, Michael, "New generation works Disneyland's rails", Orange County Register, Local, 26 November 2011, p. 4.
  11. ↑ "Today's Orange County business briefs", Orange County Register, 16 February 2006.
  12. ↑ Eades, Mark, "Disneyland Railroad engineers fire up the locomotives every morning", Orange County Register, 1 June 2010.

External links