Fred Moore
Encyclopedia
Robert Fred Moore was an American
artist and character animator for Walt Disney Productions. Often called "Freddie," he was born and raised in Los Angeles, California
. Despite limited formal art training, he rose to prominence at Disney very quickly in the early thirties due to his great natural talent and the tremendous appeal of his drawings, which is still greatly admired by animators and animation fans.
. He is most notable for redesigning the character in 1938 for his landmark role as The Sorcerer's Apprentice
in Fantasia
, a look which remains Mickey's official look to this day. His animation of the earlier Mickey design was especially memorable in the 1938 short The Brave Little Tailor, the last significant appearance of the "pie-eyed" Mickey.
Moore's other significant work at the studio included The Three Little Pigs
, on which he was the principal animator; animation supervision of the dwarfs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
; most of Lampwick in Pinocchio
(all of the poolroom scene and until halfway through his transformation to a donkey); and Timothy the mouse in Dumbo
. Moore animated some scenes of the mice from Cinderella
, some of the later scenes of the White Rabbit in Alice In Wonderland
, and did the mermaids in the Mermaid Lagoon for Peter Pan
.
Moore was well-known around the studio for his drawings of innocently sexy, often nude, women, referred to as "Freddie Moore Girls." Some of his girl designs found their way into Disney films: for example, the centaur
ettes in Fantasia and the teenage girls in the "All the Cats Join In" segment of Make Mine Music
. (In "All The Cats Join In", Moore personally animated the sequence at the beginning, when the girl answers the telephone and then quickly showers and dresses, through to her scene putting on lipstick in front of her mirror). Moore's enduring influence can also be seen in the design of Casey's daughters in the 1954 short Casey Bats Again. His girl drawings remain iconic and influential. A model sheet for Ariel in the 1989 Disney film The Little Mermaid
made specific distinctions between the design of that character and a "Freddie Moore Girl."
Moore's drawings and design style have come to epitomize the formative years of the studio in between Ub Iwerks'
departure in 1931 and the ascension of the "Nine Old Men," after which studio design was dominated by animator Milt Kahl
, along with storyboard artist Bill Peet
, and later production designer Ken Anderson
. During the 1930s, Moore, Art Babbitt
, Norm Ferguson
, Bill Tytla
, and Ham Luske were the dominant Disney animators whose pioneering work culminated in 1937 with the breakthrough of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
.
Moore was a close friend of fellow animators Ward Kimball
and Walt Kelly
, though he apparently had a quieter and more reserved nature than either of them. Many surviving gag drawings by Kelly from the period of Pinocchio show Kimball as the corrupt Lampwick, with boyish Moore as Pinocchio. Moore and Kimball were also caricatured as song and dance men in the 1941 Mickey Mouse short "The Nifty Nineties
." Moore makes a brief (and quiet) live-action appearance in the 1941 feature The Reluctant Dragon
, along with Kimball and animator Norm Ferguson
during one of the studio tour sequences.
He talked little about his family. His daughters were Sue Moore and Melinda Moore. Later on, his daughter Sue had married and had another daughter named Kelly Hall, who now resides in Tacoma, Washington with her two children.
, where he redesigned the character Woody Woodpecker
during a two-year stint that ended with his return to Disney in 1948.
when both he and his second wife, Virginia, were injured in a traffic accident early on the evening of Saturday, November 22, 1952, when their car was struck head-on while she made a U-turn on a rural highway through Big Tujunga Canyon near the Angeles National Forest. The Moores were reportedly returning from a day spent watching a football game with fellow Disney artist Jack Kinney
. Moore died the following day at St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank, California
, located across the street from the Disney Studios, from a cerebral hemorrhage resulting from a concussion. Moore is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
in a plot overlooking the Disney Studios.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
artist and character animator for Walt Disney Productions. Often called "Freddie," he was born and raised in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. Despite limited formal art training, he rose to prominence at Disney very quickly in the early thirties due to his great natural talent and the tremendous appeal of his drawings, which is still greatly admired by animators and animation fans.
Biography
Moore is best known for being the resident specialist in the animation of Mickey MouseMickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...
. He is most notable for redesigning the character in 1938 for his landmark role as The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is the English name of a poem by Goethe, Der Zauberlehrling, written in 1797. The poem is a ballad in fourteen stanzas.-Story:...
in Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...
, a look which remains Mickey's official look to this day. His animation of the earlier Mickey design was especially memorable in the 1938 short The Brave Little Tailor, the last significant appearance of the "pie-eyed" Mickey.
Moore's other significant work at the studio included The 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...
, on which he was the principal animator; animation supervision of the dwarfs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated film based on Snow White, a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full...
; most of Lampwick in Pinocchio
Pinocchio (1940 film)
Pinocchio is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the story The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. It is the second film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, and it was made after the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and was released to theaters by...
(all of the poolroom scene and until halfway through his transformation to a donkey); and Timothy the mouse in Dumbo
Dumbo
Dumbo is a 1941 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released on October 23, 1941, by RKO Radio Pictures.The fourth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, Dumbo is based upon the storyline written by Helen Aberson and illustrated by Harold Pearl for the prototype of a...
. Moore animated some scenes of the mice from Cinderella
Cinderella (1950 film)
Cinderella is a 1950 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the fairy tale "Cendrillon" by Charles Perrault. Twelfth in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film had a limited release on February 15, 1950 by RKO Radio Pictures. Directing credits go to Clyde Geronimi,...
, some of the later scenes of the White Rabbit in Alice In Wonderland
Alice in Wonderland (1951 film)
Alice in Wonderland is a 1951 American animated feature produced by Walt Disney and based primarily on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with a few additional elements from Through the Looking-Glass. Thirteenth in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film was released in New...
, and did the mermaids in the Mermaid Lagoon for Peter Pan
Peter Pan (1953 film)
Peter Pan is a 1953 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up by J. M. Barrie. It is the fourteenth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and was originally released on February 5, 1953 by RKO Pictures...
.
Moore was well-known around the studio for his drawings of innocently sexy, often nude, women, referred to as "Freddie Moore Girls." Some of his girl designs found their way into Disney films: for example, the centaur
Centaur
In Greek mythology, a centaur or hippocentaur is a member of a composite race of creatures, part human and part horse...
ettes in Fantasia and the teenage girls in the "All the Cats Join In" segment of Make Mine Music
Make Mine Music
Make Mine Music is an animated feature produced by Walt Disney and released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on August 15, 1946. It is the eighth animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series....
. (In "All The Cats Join In", Moore personally animated the sequence at the beginning, when the girl answers the telephone and then quickly showers and dresses, through to her scene putting on lipstick in front of her mirror). Moore's enduring influence can also be seen in the design of Casey's daughters in the 1954 short Casey Bats Again. His girl drawings remain iconic and influential. A model sheet for Ariel in the 1989 Disney film The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid (1989 film)
The Little Mermaid is a 1989 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name. Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, the film was originally released to theaters on November 14, 1989 and is the twenty-eighth film in...
made specific distinctions between the design of that character and a "Freddie Moore Girl."
Moore's drawings and design style have come to epitomize the formative years of the studio in between Ub Iwerks'
Ub Iwerks
Ub Iwerks, A.S.C. was a two-time Academy Award winning American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, creator of Mickey Mouse, and special effects technician, who was famous for his work for Walt Disney....
departure in 1931 and the ascension of the "Nine Old Men," after which studio design was dominated by animator Milt Kahl
Milt Kahl
Milton Erwin Kahl was an animator for the Disney studio, and one of Disney's Nine Old Men....
, along with storyboard artist Bill Peet
Bill Peet
Bill Peet , was an American children's book illustrator and a story writer for Disney Studios...
, and later production designer Ken Anderson
Ken Anderson (animator)
Ken "Kenneth B." Anderson was an art director, writer, and animator at Walt Disney Animation Studios for 44 years.Anderson studied architecture at the University of Washington, graduating with a B.Arch. in 1934...
. During the 1930s, Moore, Art Babbitt
Art Babbitt
Arthur Harold Babitsky , better known as Art Babbitt, was an American animator, best known for his work at The Walt Disney Company. He received over 80 awards as animation director and animator, but is most famous for creating Goofy...
, Norm Ferguson
Norman Ferguson
William Norman "Norm" Ferguson was an animator for Walt Disney Studios and a central contributor to the studio's stylistic development in the 1930s. He is most frequently noted for his contribution to the creation of Pluto, one of the studio's best-known and most enduring characters, and is the...
, Bill Tytla
Bill Tytla
Vladimir Peter "Bill" Tytla was one of the original Disney animators and is considered by many to be the best character animator to work during The Golden Age of Hollywood animation...
, and Ham Luske were the dominant Disney animators whose pioneering work culminated in 1937 with the breakthrough of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated film based on Snow White, a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full...
.
Moore was a close friend of fellow animators Ward Kimball
Ward Kimball
Ward Walrath Kimball 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.-Career:...
and Walt Kelly
Walt Kelly
Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr. , or Walt Kelly, was an American animator and cartoonist, best known for the comic strip, Pogo. He began his animation career in 1936 at Walt Disney Studios, contributing to Pinocchio and Fantasia. Kelly resigned in 1941 at the age of 28 to work at Post-Hall Syndicate,...
, though he apparently had a quieter and more reserved nature than either of them. Many surviving gag drawings by Kelly from the period of Pinocchio show Kimball as the corrupt Lampwick, with boyish Moore as Pinocchio. Moore and Kimball were also caricatured as song and dance men in the 1941 Mickey Mouse short "The Nifty Nineties
The Nifty Nineties
The Nifty Nineties is an animated short film produced in Technicolor by Walt Disney Productions and released to theaters on June 20, 1941 by RKO Radio Pictures. The film stars Mickey and Minnie Mouse and romanticizes the decade of the 1890s....
." Moore makes a brief (and quiet) live-action appearance in the 1941 feature The Reluctant Dragon
The Reluctant Dragon (film)
The Reluctant Dragon is a 1941 American combined live action and animated film produced by Walt Disney, directed by Alfred Werker, and released by RKO Radio Pictures on June 20, 1941...
, along with Kimball and animator Norm Ferguson
Norman Ferguson
William Norman "Norm" Ferguson was an animator for Walt Disney Studios and a central contributor to the studio's stylistic development in the 1930s. He is most frequently noted for his contribution to the creation of Pluto, one of the studio's best-known and most enduring characters, and is the...
during one of the studio tour sequences.
He talked little about his family. His daughters were Sue Moore and Melinda Moore. Later on, his daughter Sue had married and had another daughter named Kelly Hall, who now resides in Tacoma, Washington with her two children.
Brief departure and return to Disney
Fred Moore left the Disney Studios in 1946 and worked for Walter LantzWalter 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:...
, where he redesigned the character Woody Woodpecker
Woody Woodpecker
Woody Woodpecker is an animated cartoon character, an anthropomorphic acorn woodpecker who appeared in theatrical short films produced by the Walter Lantz animation studio and distributed by Universal Pictures...
during a two-year stint that ended with his return to Disney in 1948.
Accident and Death
Moore was already at work animating the mermaids and the lost boys for Peter PanPeter Pan (1953 film)
Peter Pan is a 1953 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up by J. M. Barrie. It is the fourteenth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and was originally released on February 5, 1953 by RKO Pictures...
when both he and his second wife, Virginia, were injured in a traffic accident early on the evening of Saturday, November 22, 1952, when their car was struck head-on while she made a U-turn on a rural highway through Big Tujunga Canyon near the Angeles National Forest. The Moores were reportedly returning from a day spent watching a football game with fellow Disney artist Jack Kinney
Jack Kinney
Jack Ryan Kinney was an American animator, director and producer of animated shorts.Jack Kinney attended John Muir Junior High School in Los Angeles, California , and attended John C. Fremont High School there with Roy Williams...
. Moore died the following day at St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank, California
Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....
, located across the street from the Disney Studios, from a cerebral hemorrhage resulting from a concussion. Moore is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery is part of the Forest Lawn chain of Southern California cemeteries. It is at 6300 Forest Lawn Drive in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California, on the lower north slope at the far east end of the Santa Monica...
in a plot overlooking the Disney Studios.
Disney Legend inductee
Fred Moore was posthumously inducted as a Disney Legend by the studio in 1995, and posthumously received the animation industry's Winsor McCay Award in 1983.See also
- A Trip Through the Walt Disney StudiosA Trip Through the Walt Disney StudiosA Trip Through the Walt Disney Studios was a documentary made in response to requests from members of RKO Radio Pictures for a behind the scenes look at Walt Disney Studios. The film was never intended for public showing; it was only shown to executives at RKO...
, a documentary from 1937
External links
- Blackwing Diaries blog postings on Fred Moore--with extensive examples of artwork.
- A Blackwing Diaries editorial from Jennifer Lerew exposing attempts to smear Fred Moore.
- A Cartoon Brew editorial from Amid Amidi exposing inaccuracies about Fred Moore in Jeff Lenburg's Who's Who in Animated Cartoons.
- An Oddvision site containing scans of a newspaper article describing the fatal crash, Fred Moore's death certificate, and a photo of his headstone.