Burton F. Gillett was a director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

 of animated films

Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

. He is noted for his Silly Symphonies

Silly Symphonies

Silly Symphonies is a series of animated short subjects, 75 in total, produced by Walt Disney Productions from 1929 to 1939, while the studio was still located at Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles...

 work for Disney

Walt Disney Pictures

Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...

, particularly the 1933 short film Three Little Pigs

Three Little Pigs (film)

Three Little Pigs is an animated short film released on May 27, 1933 by United Artists, produced by Walt Disney and directed by Burt Gillett. Based on a fairy tale of the same name, Three Little Pigs won the 1934 Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons. In 1994, it was voted #11 of the 50...

.

Early life

He was born in Elmira, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. His animation career started around 1916 when he was employed by the International Film Service

International Film Service

International Film Service was an American animation studio created to exploit the popularity of the comic strips controlled by William Randolph Hearst.- History :...

, an early animation studio

Animation studio

An animation studio is a company producing animated media. The broadest such companies conceive of products to produce, own the physical equipment for production, employ operators for that equipment, and hold a major stake in the sales or rentals of the media produced...

 under the ownership of William Randolph Hearst

William Randolph Hearst

William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...

 and the supervision of Gregory La Cava

Gregory La Cava

Gregory La Cava was an American film director best known for his films of the 1930s, including My Man Godfrey and Stage Door....

. The studio had been formed in 1915 and first employed experienced animator

Animator

An animator is an artist who creates multiple images that give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence; the images are called frames and key frames. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, video games, and the internet. Usually, an...

s Frank Moser and William Nolan

Bill Nolan (animator)

William "Bill" Nolan was an Irish-American animated cartoon writer, animator, director, and artist. He is best-known for creating and perfecting the rubber hose style of animation and for streamlining Felix the Cat. From 1925 to 1927, he worked on a loose animated adaptation of George Herriman's...

. Within a year the veterans had been joined by several new recruits. Gillett was probably recruited along with notable co-workers John Foster

John Foster

John Foster may refer to:* Rev. John Foster, 18th century American clergyman* John Foster , MP for Dunleer 1790–1792, son of 1st Baron Oriel* John Foster , American, also engraver...

, Jack King

Jack King (animator)

James Patton "Jack" King was an American comics artist and animator best known for his work at Walt Disney Productions.Born in Alabama, King began his animation career in the silent era in 1920 working at Bray Productions animation studio...

, Isadore Klein, Walter Lantz

Walter Lantz

Walter Benjamin Lantz was an American cartoonist, animator, film producer, and director, best known for founding Walter Lantz Productions and creating Woody Woodpecker.-Early years and start in animation:...

, Grim Natwick

Grim Natwick

Myron "Grim" Natwick was an American artist, animator and film director. Natwick is best known for drawing the Fleischer Studio's most popular character, Betty Boop.-Background:...

, Ben Sharpsteen

Ben Sharpsteen

Ben Sharpsteen was an American film director and producer for Disney. He directed 31 films between 1920 and 1980....

 and Vernon Stallings.

Career

In 1929, Gillett joined the Walt Disney Studio where he started out primarily working on Mickey Mouse cartoon shorts.http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1929/index.html However, by 1930 he directed Cannibal Capers, the first of 15 Silly Symphonies shorts to his credit. The shorts directed by Gillett included two Academy Award winners (Flowers and Trees

Flowers and Trees

Flowers and Trees is a 1932 Silly Symphonies cartoon produced by Walt Disney, directed by Burt Gillett, and released to theatres by United Artists on July 30, 1932...

and The Three Little Pigs) and also featured important firsts such as the introduction of the Pluto

Pluto (Disney)

Pluto, also called Pluto the Pup, is a cartoon character created in 1930 by Walt Disney Productions. He is a light brown , medium-sized, short-haired dog. Unlike Goofy, Pluto is not anthropomorphic beyond some characteristics such as facial expression...

 character and the first animated short to be produced in full-color three-strip Technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

.

Due to the success of The Three Little Pigs, Gillett was recruited to run the Van Beuren Studios

Van Beuren Studios

Van Beuren Studios was an American animation studio that produced theatrical cartoons from 1928 to 1936.Producer Amedee J. van Beuren first became involved in the animation industry in 1920, when he formed a partnership with Paul Terry and formed the "Aesop's Fables Studio" for the production of...

 in 1934. While working at the Van Beuren Studios, Gillett directed the Technicolor Rainbow Parade

Rainbow Parade

Rainbow Parade was a series of 27 animated shorts produced by Van Beuren Studios between 1934 and 1936. This was Van Beuren's all-color series....

 animated shorts featuring Molly Moo-Cow

Molly Moo-Cow

Molly Moo-Cow was the name of an animated character appearing in Rainbow Parade shorts produced by the Van Beuren Studios in the 1930s.This series was sold to Commonwealth Pictures in 1941 and was later syndicated for television...

, Toonerville Folks

Toonerville Folks

Toonerville Folks was a popular newspaper cartoon feature by Fontaine Fox, which ran from 1908 to 1955. It began in 1908 in the Chicago Post, and by 1913, it was syndicated nationally by the Wheeler Syndicate...

 and several color Felix the Cat

Felix the Cat

Felix the Cat is a cartoon character created in the silent film era. His black body, white eyes, and giant grin, coupled with the surrealism of the situations in which his cartoons place him, combine to make Felix one of the most recognized cartoon characters in film history...

 cartoons. When that studio closed in 1936, Gillett returned to Disney. He moved to Walter Lantz Productions in 1938, where he directed and wrote cartoons, sometimes using the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 "Gil Burton". Gillett left the animation business in 1940.

Personal life

According to fellow animator Shamus Culhane

Shamus Culhane

James "Shamus" Culhane was an American animator, film director, and film producer.Culhane worked for a number of American animation studios, including Fleischer Studios, the Ub Iwerks studio, Walt Disney Productions, and the Walter Lantz studio. He began his animation career in 1925 working for J.R...

, Gillett was mentally unstable. In his autobiography, Culhane speculates that Gillett suffered from bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...

 and notes that he swung from excessive enthusiasm to violent rages to paranoia (once attacking Culhane himself with a spindle

Spindle (stationery)

A spindle is an upright spike used to hold papers waiting for processing. "Spindling" or "spiking" was the act of spearing a paper document onto the spike....

 when they worked together at Van Beuren's studio), and that he was eventually institutionalized for many years. However, others who knew people Culhane mentioned in his book said that his statements in the book were not always the truth.

Burt's son Ted Gillett(e) was a noted aircraft designer and ham radio engineer in Southern California

Southern California

Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...

, where his family had moved when his father first worked for Disney.