Emery Hawkins

Emery Hawkins (April 30, 1912 – June 1, 1989) was an American animator who worked at various studios such as Walt Disney Animation, Screen Gems, Walter Lantz Productions, Warner Bros. Cartoons, the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio, and UPA during the golden age of animation. His most prominent work is the Woody Woodpecker cartoons from the 1940s. He also worked with Art Babbitt and Ken Harris on Richard Williams's unfinished animated feature The Thief and the Cobbler. Hawkins was known for the speed in which he animated, completing scenes quickly, but with perfection. Hawkins (along with Babbitt, Harris and Grim Natwick) is frequently mentioned in Richard Williams' book The Animator's Survival Kit.

Early life and career

Hawkins was born in Jerome, Arizona to a father who was a all-round cowboy for two years and to a mother who was a painter. He started drawing when he was two years old and his family had a lot of history with artistic careers, including his aunts. He went to North Hollywood High School but was a college dropout. Hawkins always animated on flipbooks. At the age of 16 in 1928, he did a animation of a clown walking and dancing, showed it to Disney, and thought it was a copy of their animation. He then worked on cels at the Charles Mintz studio. He started working at Disney from the short Flowers and Trees (and some of the Donald shorts) all the way to Dumbo. He went on the Disney animator strike because his colleagues said they would never talk to him again if he didn't strike. He went on to work on Woody Woodpecker. He improved Woody's design to be more streamlined along with Art Heinemann.[1][2] He briefly did commercials for different companies in the 1950s.[3] Hawkins animated The Greedy on Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure along with assistant animator Dan Haskett (who disliked the job).[4]

Hawkins developed Alzheimer's Disease in his later years and was forced to retire. He died in 1989 at the age of 77.

List of animated works

References
  1. Emery Hawkins Interview
  2. Hollywood cartoons : American animation in its golden age (1999); pg. 376
  3. Commercials Animated by Emery Hawkins and Herman Cohen
  4. Emery Hawkins Greedy animation from “Raggedy Ann and Andy”
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