Meeting Ward Kimball.
Excerpt from The History of Danish Animated Cartoons.
Section: A personal retrospective Part 1
Professionally speaking, there was enough to do on the
job. I was also recently in writing been appointed as animated cartoon director
by the directors and executives of Nordic Animated Cartoon Films. This was due
to several things, including my independent work in several advertising
cartoons, the short film “He, She and Money”
(1963; “Han, hun og pengene”) and especially the advertising cartoon
series of the Finnish coffee company TUKO, which in the years 1964-70 was made
a total of 29 short cartoons, and of these I stood even for around twenty
films. The remaining 9 Tuko film took Steinaa and Lehmann care of in common,
because I did not have time to make these movies.
This summer, more precisely in early June, we were at
the Nordic Cartoons getting visit by one of Disney's grand old men, animator
and animation director Ward Kimball and his sweet wife Betty. That year Kimball
was member of the jury at the Cartoon Film Festival in Annecy, and here he met
my colleague, the animated cartoons enthusiast Walter Lehmann, who asked
Kimball and his wife if they on their return trip to California would come to
Copenhagen and including also visit Nordic Animated Cartoon Films. This visit
is also described in detail in section DANISH CARTOONS 1950 - 1970 Part 2, but must
be supplemented with the following personal observations and experiences from
the several-hour longvisit, which I have been remembering ever since.
Immediately upon arrival at Nordisk Film’s domain at
Mosedalvej was Kimball and his wife's arrival reported by telephone by the
janitress, then Kirsten Steinaa ran down the stairs to greet the couple welcome
and accompany them up the stairs to the headquarters of the Nordic Animated
Cartoon Films. Here they greeted Ib Steinaa, and after a brief chat about the
weather Ib and Kirsten were guiding the celebrated guests around the study, to
show the otherwise not very impressive sites, and to greet employees. As usual
with this kind of visit the participants ended in 'my' studio, where they
greeted me, which at the time was sitting alone here in the very small room.
At that time there was not pinned any story drawings
up on the board, but various other drawings, sketches and clippings. One of the
clips was a full-page joke drawing from probably the monthly publication
“Mandens Blad” ("The Man's Magazine"), which showed a happily smiling
naked Dopey lying in bed next to a naked Snow White, and the six other dwarves
stood around the bed and stared in amazement. The text read: "And HIM we
have called DOPEY!" When I translated the text for Kimball, he laughed out
loud. - At the time I knew that Kimball back in the years 1935-36 had been one
of the animators on "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937), and
when I ventured to question him about it, he replied that he well enough had
been an employee at the "Snow White" movie and animated two
sequences: the sequence where the dwarfs build a bed for Snow White and the
sequence where they eat soup. But, he added, none of the scenes were beyond the
state of cleaning up, because Disney had found out that the two sequences
"would slow down the pace of the film". The two line test sequences
has since become world famous through the TV and various VHS and DVD releases.
In this photo from June 29, 1965, recorded in the courtyard at Nordisk Film in Valby, Ward Kimball is seen sitting behind the wheel of the veteran car, and beside him Walther Lehmann. Rear passengers are from left Flemming Jensen, Kirsten Steinaa and Betty Kimball. Standing beside the car, which had been used in the filming of the movie "The dear family" (1962), are Harry Rasmussen and Anne Lise Andersen. - The photo is taken by Henning Bahs with Kimball’s camera.
After Ward and Betty Kimball had been shown around the
Nordic Animated Cartoon Film studios, he concluded: "Your Studio looks
exactly like all other animated cartoon studios in the World! One feels at
home! "
Then it was time for Ward and Betty to make a visit
over at Nordisk Film Junior, where they greeted Ove Sevel, which incidentally
years ago had been responsible for the dubbing of some of Disney's long
cartoons, such as. "Cinderella" (1950; “Askepot”) and "Alice in
Wonderland" (1951; “Alice I Eventyrland”). On one of the walls of the long
corridor that led from the entrance of the building and to Sevel’s office at
the end of the corridor, hung the movie posters for including some of Disney's
long cartoons, among them also just "Cinderella". Mice Tim and Bom
and the cat Lucifer listened to some of my favorite characters in the movie,
and when we passed the poster, I ventured to ask a question to Kimball, and
when the American custom was on first name terms with each other, I said,
"Ward! Did you animate the mice and the Cat? "- There was a long
pause, during which Kimball looked intently at me through his thick glasses,
before he replied as follows:" You see, Harry, I have forgotten all about
that movie! "
Later on I wondered how it could be that Kimball had
forgotten or maybe did not want to talk about exactly his work on
"Cinderella" when he, according to my former information, had been an
animator on the above mentioned characters, and not least the cat Lucifer, thus
creating some of the best and most legendary animation at Disney’s. Only in the
early 1980s, I found out that one of the reasons that 'memory failed' Kimball
might be that there actually were several excellent animators who had worked on
the mouse sequences, namely, to the subsequent eponymous character film
director Woolie Reithermann which then had been supervising animator.
At dinnertime Ward and Betty were of course invited to
lunch in the cafeteria, wherin had been
reserved table for 6 people. Apart from Kimball and his wife attended Ib and
Kirsten, and Lehmann and I in the celebrated moment. Since Kirsten was one of
us who spoke the best English, she was mainly leading the conversation,
sometimes supplemented by Lehmann, who was also reasonably good at speaking
English, but usually was not a man of many words. Ib also spoke English, but he
remained to his customary beliefs largely silent during the entire lunch, as I
did, mostly because I felt somewhat insecure about my English skills. Kirsten
and Lehmann had high school diploma, while Ib 'only' had lower secondary
education and I only school leaving examination from Second Free Medium. Unlike
the others I had not learned English in school during the German occupation,
but only German, which I was not very good at. It happened, however, that I
sometimes enjoyed the conversation around the lunch table and dared to make a
comment or an inquisitive questions to the man, that Ward Kimball, whose name
and work as an animator and character filmmaker I was fairly well acquainted
with through the otherwise sparse literature on Disney employees that existed
at the time.
Over lunch, Ward and Betty told in their way that they
had been in "the Tivoli garden" the day before, and both spoke most
appreciative of the beautiful amusement park. "And imagine, the flowers
are real!" They both said simultaneously. It was to their great
disappointment, not the case with all vegetation in "Disneyland", the
theme park in Anaheim, which was only about five years old and still in the
building stage, when Disney in July 1959 visited Copenhagen and including
Nordisk Film and Nordic Animated Cartoon Films. The park was opened to the
public in 1955, ie 10 years before Ward and Betty Kimball's visit with us.
The lunch we had on that occasion consisted of open
sandwiches, as hostess Else Stæhr was master of. But the strange thing was that
Kimball did not use a knife and fork, as we usually do, but picking the meat
and ate it separately, while he actually left the bread alone. As probably well
known the Americans do not so much use to eat open sandwiches and neither with
knife and fork, but as the friendly and accommodating human, Betty Kimball was,
she tried to follow the Danish custom and ate her sandwich with knife and fork,
all the while she also got herself a good talk with Kirsten about – of course -
everything else than cartoons.
After lunch, Ward and Betty were invited to view a
screening of Nordisk Animated Cartoon Films presentation reel, and the view was
going on in the cinema up in Nordisk Film's central building. All of Nordic
Animated Cartoon Films employees were also invited to the screening. However,
it was not much, Ward came to see of the film reel containing various
advertising cartoons and the two short films, Nordic Animated Cartoon Films had
produced up to that time: "Thousands of G" (1962) and “He, She and
Money" (1963), because about ten minutes after the light in the hall had
been turned off, Ward nodded his head and fell asleep. Betty poked repeatedly
to him, and he woke indeed up, but fell immediately asleep again. Film
Screening lasted about an hour, and about five minutes before the lights again
was lit in the hall, Kimball woke back up and remained so awake that he could
see the rest of the presentation reel.
Afterwards he excused himself by saying that he had
not gotten much sleep in the last few days, but he had seen enough of the
presentation of our films to be able to say: "I am really surprised, that
your films are of such high quality!" We were of course some pieces, not
least Ib Steinaa, who grew an inch or two after these appreciative words from a
master.
Shortly after Ward and Betty's return to California
our collegue Lehmann received on their own and our behalf a letter of thanks,
which was typed at Walt Disney Productions' letterhead, dated July 16, '65, and
included six photos of the former reproduced above photo where Kimball sits
behind the steering wheel of the veteran car, that had been used in director
Erik Balling’s film "The dear family":
Dear
Good People:
Mrs.
Kimball and myself want to thank you and thank you again for showing us your
studio when we visited Copenhagen. The lunch was great and so was the drink!
We
also enjoyed seeing your films and seeing the old Auto.
Enclosed
are enough prints for everyone appearing in the picture. (I hope). They took
some funny pictures of me and the Copenhagen Fire Department the next day.
These were supposed to appear in your local paper.
Thanks
again, and I hope to see some of you at the next Film Festival!
At Christmas time staff at the Nordic Animated Cartoon
Films again heard from Ward and Betty Kimball, and in this case also from their
daughter Chloe, and this time in the form of a cheerful postcards that pictured
three hanging colored glass balls falling down and ends with the two of these
breaks, namely those with Betty and Ward, while their daughter Chloe’s glass
ball remains intact, causing her to look gleeful and triumphant on the parents.
The postcard is represented below:
Above is the Christmas
cards that staff at the Nordic Animated Cartoon Films jointly received from
Ward Kimball up to Christmas 1965. Top upstage left shows the front cover of
the folded card while the card is seen unfolded in its full length right. -
Christmas © 1965 by Ward Kimball.
After the interesting visit of one of Disney's famous
Nine Old Men some of us felt it hard just to sit behind the lighting desk again
to continue the work and the daily routine. Some of us dreamed all about making
cartoons and just as good animation like the one we had for years been seen in
Disney's short as well as long cartoons, but we also realized that we lacked
both experience and practical possibilities - and perhaps talent - to develop
and qualitatively improve our performance. There was simply not enough work,
and not at all tasks, which there not were economics and time to practice on.
Moreover, it never really got off the ground with some form of training of talents.
Ib Steinaa had admittedly for a shorter time attempted a night school for
students on study, but it was gradually slipped into the sand. For our other
positions, which in the first instance would say Walther Lehmann, Flemming
Jensen and me, we had each to do our own experience, both through the
work-order tasks, and partly through self-study of the relatively few books on
cartoons that existed at the time, and in particular to study Disney’s and
UPA's cartoons.
© 2014 by Harry Rasmussen.
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The site of A / S Nordic Cartoon Films in Valby,
Copenhagen
Above is the building on the
site of Nordic Film's in Valby, where A / S Nordic Cartoon Films was housed
from July 1957 to the end of 1966. The company had occupied the entire first
floor, to which two wooden stairs lead up. The staircase, which is seen in the
foreground, leading to a door into the drawing offices, was in daily use by
staff while stairs as glimpsed in the background on the right, leading up to
the office, where production leader Kirsten Steinaa resided. Behind the window
to the left of the picture was first a drawing room for the designers Mogens
Gylling and Ib Clausen, but after the two had left the company, the space
functioned as the inking and colouring department, which Anna Lise Andersen was
the leader of. The first window in the facade just around the corner was the
studio of the apprentices Anton Fredsøe, Antti Peränne and Kate Thygesen,
from April 1,1959 for Anton Fredsøe,
Antti Peränne and animator Harry Rasmussen.
The next window in the
series gave daylight to the designer Helge Christiansen and later to apprentice
Elisabeth Halgreen, and even later to animator Flemming Jensen. Behind the
third window in the series was first inking and colouring department, but from
about 1962 it was the drawing office for animators Walter Lehmann, Flemming
Jensen and apprentice Jacob Koch. The photo is taken on a snowy winter day in
January 2010. - © 2010 by Hans Perk and The History of Danish Cartoons.
© 2014 by Harry Rasmussen.
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