Willis O'Brien
Encyclopedia
Willis Harold O'Brien was an Irish American
pioneering motion picture
special effects artist who perfected and specialized in stop-motion animation. He was affectionately known to his family and close friends as "Obie".
. He was a cartoonist for the San Francisco Daily News, and a professional marble
sculptor
before he began working in film. O'Brien was married to Hazel Ruth Collette in 1925 and divorced by 1930. He had two sons from the marriage, but, in 1933, Hazel shot and killed the two boys and turned the gun on herself. She survived but died soon after suffering from cancer
and tuberculosis
.
O'Brien died in Los Angeles
. He was survived by his second wife, Darlyne. During his lifetime, O'Brien was never interviewed in depth about his career or methods. In 1997, he was posthumously awarded the Winsor McCay Award by ASIFA-Hollywood
, the United States
chapter of the International Animated Film Society ASIFA (Association internationale du film d'animation). The award is in recognition of lifetime or career contributions to the art of animation
. His interment was located at Chapel of the Pines Crematory
.
(1915) and the nineteen minute long The Ghost of Slumber Mountain
(1918), the later of which helping to secure his position on The Lost World
. For his early, short films O'Brien created his own characters out of clay, although for much of his feature career he would employ Richard and Marcel Delgado
to create much more detailed stop-motion models (based on O'Brien's designs) with rubber skin built up over complex, articulated metal armatures.
O'Brien's first Hollywood
feature was The Lost World
(1925). Although his 1931 film Creation
was never completed, it led to his most famous work, animating the dinosaurs and the famous giant ape in King Kong
(1933), and its sequel Son of Kong (1933). He was chief technician for the epic The Last Days of Pompeii
(1935). The film Mighty Joe Young (1949), on which O'Brien is credited as Technical Creator, won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects
in 1950. Credit for the award went to the films producers, RKO Productions
, but O'Brien was also awarded a statue. O'Brien's protege (and successor), Ray Harryhausen
, worked alongside O'Brien on this film, and by some accounts Harryhausen did the majority of the animation. O'Brien did some special effects work on Orson Welles
' American classic Citizen Kane
.
Later movies with special effects by Willis O'Brien included The Animal World
(US 1956, in collaboration with Harryhausen), The Black Scorpion
(US 1957) and Behemoth, the Sea Monster
(UK 1959, US release entitled The Giant Behemoth). Although O'Brien is widely hailed as an animation pioneer, in his later years he struggled to find work. On the 1960 remake of The Lost World
, O'Brien was hired as the effects technician, but was disappointed that producer Irwin Allen opted for live lizards instead of stop-motion animation for the dinosaurs. One of his story ideas was used in Ishirō Honda
's King Kong vs. Godzilla
(1962). Shortly before his death, he animated a brief scene in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
(1963), featuring some characters dangling from a fire escape and ladder. O'Brien died before the film was released.
The 1969 film The Valley of Gwangi
, completed by Harryhausen seven years after O'Brien's death, was based on an idea he had spent years trying to bring to the screen. O'Brien wrote the script for an earlier version of the story which was released as The Beast of Hollow Mountain
(US 1956), but O'Brien did not handle the effects for that movie.
Irish American
Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...
pioneering motion picture
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
special effects artist who perfected and specialized in stop-motion animation. He was affectionately known to his family and close friends as "Obie".
Life
Willis O'Brien was born in Oakland, CaliforniaOakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
. He was a cartoonist for the San Francisco Daily News, and a professional marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
sculptor
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
before he began working in film. O'Brien was married to Hazel Ruth Collette in 1925 and divorced by 1930. He had two sons from the marriage, but, in 1933, Hazel shot and killed the two boys and turned the gun on herself. She survived but died soon after suffering from cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
.
O'Brien died in Los Angeles
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...
. He was survived by his second wife, Darlyne. During his lifetime, O'Brien was never interviewed in depth about his career or methods. In 1997, he was posthumously awarded the Winsor McCay Award by ASIFA-Hollywood
ASIFA-Hollywood
ASIFA-Hollywood, a non-profit organization in Los Angeles, California, USA, which is a branch member of the "Association Internationale du Film d'Animation" or "ASIFA"...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
chapter of the International Animated Film Society ASIFA (Association internationale du film d'animation). The award is in recognition of lifetime or career contributions to the art of animation
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...
. His interment was located at Chapel of the Pines Crematory
Chapel of the Pines Crematory
Chapel of the Pines Crematory is a crematory and columbarium located at 1605 South Catalina Street Los Angeles, California, in the historic West Adams District a short distance southwest of Downtown...
.
Career
O'Brien was hired by the Edison Company to produce several short films with a prehistoric theme, most notably The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric TragedyThe Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy
The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy is a 1917 American comedy silent film animated by Willis O'Brien that premiered in 1915, and is one of O'Brien's only wholly animated films...
(1915) and the nineteen minute long The Ghost of Slumber Mountain
The Ghost of Slumber Mountain
The Ghost of Slumber Mountain was a 1918 film, written and directed by special effects pioneer Willis O'Brien, produced by Herbert M. Dawley, and starred both men; Dawley played Uncle Jack Holmes, while O'Brien played the ghost of Mad Dick the Hermit...
(1918), the later of which helping to secure his position on The Lost World
The Lost World (1925 film)
The Lost World is a 1925 silent film adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel of the same name. The movie was produced by First National Pictures, a large Hollywood studio at the time, and stars Wallace Beery as Professor Challenger. This version was directed by Harry O...
. For his early, short films O'Brien created his own characters out of clay, although for much of his feature career he would employ Richard and Marcel Delgado
Marcel Delgado
Marcel Delgado was a sculptor and model-maker. His technique revolutionized the stop motion film industry. He is best known for his work on the 1933 film King Kong....
to create much more detailed stop-motion models (based on O'Brien's designs) with rubber skin built up over complex, articulated metal armatures.
O'Brien's first Hollywood
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
feature was The Lost World
The Lost World (1925 film)
The Lost World is a 1925 silent film adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel of the same name. The movie was produced by First National Pictures, a large Hollywood studio at the time, and stars Wallace Beery as Professor Challenger. This version was directed by Harry O...
(1925). Although his 1931 film Creation
Creation (1931 film)
Creation is an unfinished 1931 feature film, and a project of stop motion animator Willis O'Brien. It was about modern men encountering dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals on an island. The picture was scrapped by RKO studio head David O. Selznick on the grounds of expense, and Merian C...
was never completed, it led to his most famous work, animating the dinosaurs and the famous giant ape in King Kong
King Kong (1933 film)
King Kong is a Pre-Code 1933 fantasy monster adventure film co-directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, and written by Ruth Rose and James Ashmore Creelman after a story by Cooper and Edgar Wallace. The film tells of a gigantic island-dwelling apeman creature called Kong who dies in...
(1933), and its sequel Son of Kong (1933). He was chief technician for the epic The Last Days of Pompeii
The Last Days of Pompeii (1935 film)
The Last Days of Pompeii is an RKO Radio Pictures film starring Preston Foster and directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper, creators of the original King Kong...
(1935). The film Mighty Joe Young (1949), on which O'Brien is credited as Technical Creator, won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects
Academy Award for Visual Effects
The Academy Award for Visual Effects is an Academy Award given for the best achievement in visual effects.-History of the award:The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences first recognized the technical contributions of special effects to movies at its inaugural dinner in 1928, presenting a...
in 1950. Credit for the award went to the films producers, RKO Productions
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
, but O'Brien was also awarded a statue. O'Brien's protege (and successor), Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen is an American film producer and special effects creator...
, worked alongside O'Brien on this film, and by some accounts Harryhausen did the majority of the animation. O'Brien did some special effects work on Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
' American classic Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
.
Later movies with special effects by Willis O'Brien included The Animal World
The Animal World (film)
The Animal World is a 1956 documentary film that was produced, written and directed by Irwin Allen. The film includes live-action footage of animals throughout the world, along with a ten-minute stop motion animated sequence about dinosaurs....
(US 1956, in collaboration with Harryhausen), The Black Scorpion
The Black Scorpion (film)
The Black Scorpion is a 1957 American horror film released by Warner Brothers, with stop motion special effects done by Willis O'Brien.-Plot:...
(US 1957) and Behemoth, the Sea Monster
Behemoth, the Sea Monster
Behemoth, the Sea Monster is an American-British science-fiction film co-production. Originally a story about an amorphous blob of radiation, the script was changed at the distributor's insistence to a pastiche of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms , though elements of the original concept remain in...
(UK 1959, US release entitled The Giant Behemoth). Although O'Brien is widely hailed as an animation pioneer, in his later years he struggled to find work. On the 1960 remake of The Lost World
The Lost World (1960 film)
The Lost World is a 1960 science fiction adventure film based on the novel of the same name by Arthur Conan Doyle and directed by Irwin Allen...
, O'Brien was hired as the effects technician, but was disappointed that producer Irwin Allen opted for live lizards instead of stop-motion animation for the dinosaurs. One of his story ideas was used in Ishirō Honda
Ishiro Honda
Ishirō Honda , sometimes miscredited in foreign releases as "Inoshiro Honda", was a Japanese film director...
's King Kong vs. Godzilla
King Kong vs. Godzilla
is a 1962 Japanese science fiction kaiju film produced by Toho Studios. Directed by Ishirō Honda with visual effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, the film starred Tadao Takashima, Kenji Sahara, and Mie Hama. It was the third installment in the Japanese series of films featuring the monster Godzilla...
(1962). Shortly before his death, he animated a brief scene in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a 1963 American comedy film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer about the madcap pursuit of $350,000 in stolen cash by a diverse and colorful group of strangers...
(1963), featuring some characters dangling from a fire escape and ladder. O'Brien died before the film was released.
The 1969 film The Valley of Gwangi
The Valley of Gwangi
The Valley of Gwangi is a 1969 American western-fantasy film directed by Jim O'Connolly and written by William Bast. The film is also known as Gwangi, The Lost Valley, The Valley Time Forgot, and The Valley Where Time Stood Still...
, completed by Harryhausen seven years after O'Brien's death, was based on an idea he had spent years trying to bring to the screen. O'Brien wrote the script for an earlier version of the story which was released as The Beast of Hollow Mountain
The Beast of Hollow Mountain
The Beast of Hollow Mountain is a 1956 scifi/horror western about an American cowboy living in Mexico who discovers his missing cattle are being preyed upon by an Allosaurus...
(US 1956), but O'Brien did not handle the effects for that movie.
Completed films (in chronological order)
- The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric TragedyThe Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric TragedyThe Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy is a 1917 American comedy silent film animated by Willis O'Brien that premiered in 1915, and is one of O'Brien's only wholly animated films...
(1915) - R.F.D. 10,000 B.C. (1916)
- Prehistoric Poultry (1917?)
- The Ghost of Slumber MountainThe Ghost of Slumber MountainThe Ghost of Slumber Mountain was a 1918 film, written and directed by special effects pioneer Willis O'Brien, produced by Herbert M. Dawley, and starred both men; Dawley played Uncle Jack Holmes, while O'Brien played the ghost of Mad Dick the Hermit...
(1918) - The Lost WorldThe Lost World (1925 film)The Lost World is a 1925 silent film adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel of the same name. The movie was produced by First National Pictures, a large Hollywood studio at the time, and stars Wallace Beery as Professor Challenger. This version was directed by Harry O...
(1925) - King KongKing Kong (1933 film)King Kong is a Pre-Code 1933 fantasy monster adventure film co-directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, and written by Ruth Rose and James Ashmore Creelman after a story by Cooper and Edgar Wallace. The film tells of a gigantic island-dwelling apeman creature called Kong who dies in...
(RKO, 1933) - Son of Kong (1933)
- The Last Days of PompeiiThe Last Days of Pompeii (1935 film)The Last Days of Pompeii is an RKO Radio Pictures film starring Preston Foster and directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper, creators of the original King Kong...
(1935) - Mighty Joe Young (RKO, 1949) – Academy Award for Best Visual Effects
- The Animal WorldThe Animal World (film)The Animal World is a 1956 documentary film that was produced, written and directed by Irwin Allen. The film includes live-action footage of animals throughout the world, along with a ten-minute stop motion animated sequence about dinosaurs....
(US, 1956) (with Ray Harryhausen) - The Black ScorpionThe Black Scorpion (film)The Black Scorpion is a 1957 American horror film released by Warner Brothers, with stop motion special effects done by Willis O'Brien.-Plot:...
(US 1957) - Behemoth, the Sea MonsterBehemoth, the Sea MonsterBehemoth, the Sea Monster is an American-British science-fiction film co-production. Originally a story about an amorphous blob of radiation, the script was changed at the distributor's insistence to a pastiche of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms , though elements of the original concept remain in...
(UK 1959; US release entitled The Giant Behemoth) - The Lost WorldThe Lost World (1960 film)The Lost World is a 1960 science fiction adventure film based on the novel of the same name by Arthur Conan Doyle and directed by Irwin Allen...
(1960) – Technical Consultant - It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad WorldIt's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad WorldIt's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a 1963 American comedy film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer about the madcap pursuit of $350,000 in stolen cash by a diverse and colorful group of strangers...
(1963; part)
Uncompleted or unmade projects (in alphabetical order)
- Atlantis – developed by O'Brien and Harry Hoyt after the success of The Lost World.
- Baboon: A Tale about a Yeti – story set in the Himalayas
- The Bubbles – bubble-like creatures in Baja California start eating up anything in their path.
- CreationCreation (1931 film)Creation is an unfinished 1931 feature film, and a project of stop motion animator Willis O'Brien. It was about modern men encountering dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals on an island. The picture was scrapped by RKO studio head David O. Selznick on the grounds of expense, and Merian C...
- The Eagle – about a giant eagle who kills a dinosaur
- Emilio and Guloso – about a boy and his pet bull who save their town from a dinosaur called "Lagarto Grande" ("The Great Lizard").
- FrankensteinFrankensteinFrankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
- Gwangi – eventually made into The Valley of GwangiThe Valley of GwangiThe Valley of Gwangi is a 1969 American western-fantasy film directed by Jim O'Connolly and written by William Bast. The film is also known as Gwangi, The Lost Valley, The Valley Time Forgot, and The Valley Where Time Stood Still...
by Ray Harryhausen. - Last of the Labyrinthodons – modern-day sea monsters from prehistoric times attacking ships
- The Last of the Oso Si-Papu – about a giant creature resembling a bear with skin like a Gila monster roaming Arizona
- Umbah – treatment by O'Brien about two giant Indians spawned by a doctor's experiment
- Valley of the Mists – further elaboration of "Emilio."
- The Vines of Ceres – vines from outer space engulf San Francisco
- War Eagles – about a race of Vikings riding on prehistoric eagles who fought dinosaurs. Cancelled by World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
External links
- "Willis H. O'Brien: special effects pioneer" (Additional information and photos)
- "Willis H. O'Brien: stop-motion pioneer" (early stop-motion shorts and photos)
- "Monster Film Giants Willis H. O'Brien" (Full length bio and career profile)