Women Animators

[Cartman]

Were there any studios during the Golden Age that did hire female animators at one point?

[Geezil]

Were there any studios during the Golden Age that did hire female animators at one point?

For one, the Walter Lantz shop employed LaVerne Harding (also sometimes more slyly billed as "Verne" Harding) from roughly 1934 to 1960.

[Matt the Y]

For one, the Walter Lantz shop employed LaVerne Harding (also sometimes more slyly billed as "Verne" Harding) from roughly 1934 to 1960.

She was also employed at DePatie-Freleng from 1964 to 1967 and from WB/7 Arts from 1967 to the 1969 shutdown.

[Thad]

There were Lillian Friedman at Fleischer's and Retta Scott at Disney's as well.

[J Lee]

The Fleichers had Lilian Friedman, who was the first female animator, working for the Shamus Culhane unit at first, and later for the Myron Waldman unit when he left the (according to Culhane, misogynist) Willard Bowsky unit. She was uncredited until joining the Waldman unit.

Friedman left the Fleischers in 1938, because she didn't want to move to Miami. Bob Jaques, over at his new blog on Popeye animators, said he plans to highlight Friedman's work from her only Popeye cartoon "Can You Take It?" sometime in the near future.

[Sogturtle]

As I recall we've been down this road sometime in about the last year...:). And as our friends already rightly pointed out there were two justly famous talented female animators (Lillian Friedman and Laverne Harding) who attained the status of CREDITED FULL animators during the Golden Age.

There were at Warners and MGM several ladies who during the War years and for a while afterwards attained the rank of assistant animator. But since the major studios did such a good job of keeping the majority of their animators from being drafted then quite simply the opportunity never presented itself for these women to be allowed to advance to full-animator status... However there was at least one exception to this, but for whatever reasons only one studio ever gave her actual billing.

[Jack G.]

There's a "script" of the Fresh Vegetable Mystery that has an animator credited for animated footage named Edith Vernick.
Was this person credited as an animator a woman?

[Sogturtle]

There's a "script" of the Fresh Vegetable Mystery that has an animator credited for animated footage named Edith Vernick.
Was this person credited as an animator a woman?

Masked Stinker~

Just be glad Edith isn't around right now or she'd clobber ya for asking if she was a woman.:p

She was USUALLY the head of the inbetween dept. at Fleischer's, buuuuut like I tried mentioning in the past it is EXTREMELY difficult to be sure just who was animating UNCREDITED at any studios. So YES she was a woman and YES she SOMETIMES animated...:cool:

[Ray Pointer]

Berny Wolf acknowledged that Edith Vernick was an Animator before Lillian Freedman was. She taught Berny how to animate according to him. As for Lillian Freeman, she did go down to Miami for a short while. But because she was active in the 1937 strike, she met with hostility among studio loyalists. This and the fact that she was married and her working on Miami separated her from her husband resulted in her returning to New York after a short period. Accordingly, she dropped out of the business from that point on according to the taped interview at The Golden Awards where she was honored 25 years ago.

[Sogturtle]

Though she appears not to have ever gotten any THEATRICAL credit, animator Joyce Weir worked at UPA for a while. In fact she was the sole credited animator on UPA's "Expanding World Relationships" (there's a snooze-inducing title if I ever heard one!:p ). Warner background great Paul Julian did part of the design work on it...

[Dirty Skunk]

Sorry to take this slightly off-topic, but I wasn't sure it deserved a thread of its own. Just recalling the Whoopi Goldberg intro at the beginning of LTGC 3, where she says that Warners was the studio to first hire a black animator, named Frank Braxton (sp?). That is not a name that I recall seeing in the credits of any cartoon that I remember, so does anybody know what material he worked on?

[Sogturtle]

Sorry to take this slightly off-topic, but I wasn't sure it deserved a thread of its own. Just recalling the Whoopi Goldberg intro at the beginning of LTGC 3, where she says that Warners was the studio to first hire a black animator, named Frank Braxton (sp?). That is not a name that I recall seeing in the credits of any cartoon that I remember, so does anybody know what material he worked on?

Dirty Skunk~

Frank Braxton wasn't an animator when he was hired (at Ben Washam's behest) in the early Fifties, he'd been driving a taxi. Hence the reason why you've never seen his name on any Warner cartoons.
Though he proved to be so good at Warners that after only two years he left reportedly as a "journeyman animator" (normally it took 5 or so years). Sooooo basically he went from zero to sixty in about 8 seconds:D.

A little later he worked on the Magoo TV cartoons and Linus the Lion Hearted. And he did a bit for John Hubley, plus a year or so in a Spanish cartoon studio. Besides that he animated for Bill Melendez and directed some for Jay Ward... In a moment of things almost running in cycles he accepted work animating for Chuck Jones (but this time at MGM). By that point in time he was ill with cancer from which he died in 1969.

[Sogturtle]

Since we're talking here about women animators... AND NOW that Edith Vernick's name has already come up as the head of the Fleischer inbetween department AND sometime animator then I figure this would be a good time to show my friends a smidgeon of Edith's poetry... :p Sooooo with that in mind here's one of her distinctly cartoon-related ones...:betty: :sailor:

Them's Wot Lives In Glass Houses!
by Edith Vernick

There will always be a Popeye with his cap and that,
But I bet he'd look just stunning in a gray fedora hat.

I'm so used to seeing Olive, thin and homely as can be,
Yet I think she'd look de-lovely with her hair like Gypsy Lee.

And I'm tired viewing Bluto with his beard uncouth and such,
Don'tcha think a waxed moustachio would make him look like much?

Now just take a look at Wimpy, he's so dumby and so fat,
Why with Max to teach him bowling, it's a cinch to alter that.

Well, let's see what's wrong with Betty - hmm, I guess she's all O.K.
Gosh!! I just looked in the mirror - throwing stones just doesn't pay.

[J Lee]

Here's the permalink (http://popeyeanimators.blogspot.com/2007/10/lillian-friedman-astor-pioneer-woman.html) to Bob Jacques profile of Friedman on his Popeye animators blog and the scenes she animated in Myron Waldman's "Can You Take It?"

[Sogturtle]

Here's the permalink (http://popeyeanimators.blogspot.com/2007/10/lillian-friedman-astor-pioneer-woman.html) to Bob Jacques profile of Friedman on his Popeye animators blog and the scenes she animated in Myron Waldman's "Can You Take It?"

For one, the Walter Lantz shop employed LaVerne Harding (also sometimes more slyly billed as "Verne" Harding) from roughly 1934 to 1960.


She was also employed at DePatie-Freleng from 1964 to 1967 and from WB/7 Arts from 1967 to the 1969 shutdown.

There really is very little doubt that Lillian Friedman was the first female American animator. We can only ponder "why" Edith Vernick was stuck in the position of head of inbetweeners since she'd been at Fleischer's far longer than Friedman.

What IS known is that by the late-Thirties Vernick not only animated on "The Fresh Vegetable Mystery" but also was caricatured as a MEMBER of the "Personality Boys Group" (other members showing as Dave Tendlar, Nick Tafuri, Bob Bentley, Irv Spector, William Sturm, John Walworth, Reuben Grossman, and Nelson Demorest. This drawing is found on page 170 of "The Fleischer Story". Her inclusion in such a group basically is an acknowledgement that she was animating at least some by that late date and was viewed as a "personality animator". As such we can probably say that young Lillian Friedman essentially blazed the way for Edith Vernick...

Annnnnnd LaVerne Harding also reportedly did some animation at John Sutherland's studio in the latter Forties. And though mostly TV-work was involved, she was employed at Hanna-Barbera from about 1960 through '64.

[rodinei1964]

There are more women animators who were in activity. Here are they:


Xenia DeMattia
Joan Orbison
Maria Jursic
Marija Dail
Marcia Holt (Harry Holt's wife)
Margaret Nichols
Also in the animation field, there are also women who worked (and work) as background artists. Here are they:

Roberta Greutert
Vera Hanson
Rosemary O'Connor
Neenah Maxwell
Daniela Bielecka
Sheila Brown
Sandra Loughry
Cathy Braver
Janet Brown
I'll continue with this list later.

[doctoon]

She was also employed at DePatie-Freleng from 1964 to 1967 and from WB/7 Arts from 1967 to the 1969 shutdown.

La Verne Harding was also at Filmation from around 1970 to 1973.

[Matt the Y]

Also in the animation field, there are also women who worked (and work) as background artists. Here are they:

Roberta Greutert
Vera Hanson
Rosemary O'Connor
Neenah Maxwell
Daniela Bielecka
Sheila Brown
Sandra Loughry
Cathy Braver
Janet Brown


Don't forget Thelma Witmer who worked as a BG artist for many, many years at Disney's.

[Ray Pointer]

To clarifiy the point, I said that according to Berny Wolf, Edith Vernick was "animating" before Lillian Friedman, since Edith taught him to animate. Lillian was certainly the first to make the official ranks of animator thanks to the efforts of Shamus Culhane and Myron Waldman. The fact that Edith was in charge of Inbetweening rather than promoted officially to Animator was moreso due to the atmosphere of sexism that Lillian had to deal with. Edith was with Fleischer in the 1920s and remained a loyal employee through the end of the studio.

Lillian did a lot of uncredited work, having credit on only a handfull of cartoons. Anyone who has seen BETTY BOOP AND THE LITTLE KING
will have seen the scene where BETTY puts her fingers to her mouth and whistles to signal the entrance of the horse. That was done by Lillian, and she is not given screen credit on this cartoon. She was credited on PUDGY TAKES A BOW-WOW along with Myron Waldman and a few others in Myron's unit.

Lillian Friedman made the crusade to sross the gender barrier, and participated in the 1937 strike. Beinga woman, she was paid less than men doing the same work, which was one of her issues in participating in the strike. Normally, the placement for women in those days was as inkers and "opaquers" (Cel Painters). Some such as Edith Vernick were made supervisors. There were Final Check Supervisors, Nelly Sandborn and Alice Morgan, middle ages women who would review all of the animation drawings before they went into inking. They would determine if additional Inbetweens were necessary based on the spacing of the drawings, and send them back for additional drawings. In essence they were responsible for altering the timing of the animation, resulting in the sometimes slow, but tightly Inbetweened and graceful, almost floating quality of the animation.
But women did not reach an artistic level such as Animator as a rule.
The closest any women came to the actual artistic level was in the Inbeteen
Department as Inbetweeners, or as background painters in the Background Department, which again was dominated by men under supervisor, Eric Schenk.

According to her acceptance speech at the Screen Cartonists' Golden Awards, Lillian was invited to Miami in 1938, and was ostraciszed for her participating in the strike to the extent that she returned to New York shortly afterward. Also being married at the time, she returned to be with her husband and left the business for good, In her own words she left, "the business that I loved to hate.":betty:

[Ray Pointer]

Don't forget Thelma Witmer who worked as a BG artist for many, many years at Disney's.

The subject is women "animators," and we need to make the clear distinction aside from background painting. While BGs are a component in the production of animated cartoons, the act of BG painting is not animation.

[cpdavison]

Women animators?

I understand Grim Natwick was known for his animation of women...

So that would make him a woman animator, right?

Craig D.

[rodinei1964]

Sorry, Ray. I rushed away from this subject.

[Ray Pointer]

Women animators?

I understand Grim Natwick was known for his animation of women...

So that would make him a woman animator, right?

Craig D.

:befuddled That's animator of women. Sorry, but it's a poor pun, pardner!:ysam:

[Ray Pointer]

There really is very little doubt that Lillian Friedman was the first female American animator. We can only ponder "why" Edith Vernick was stuck in the position of head of inbetweeners since she'd been at Fleischer's far longer than Friedman.

What IS known is that by the late-Thirties Vernick not only animated on "The Fresh Vegetable Mystery" but also was caricatured as a MEMBER of the "Personality Boys Group" (other members showing as Dave Tendlar, Nick Tafuri, Bob Bentley, Irv Spector, William Sturm, John Walworth, Reuben Grossman, and Nelson Demorest. This drawing is found on page 170 of "The Fleischer Story". Her inclusion in such a group basically is an acknowledgement that she was animating at least some by that late date and was viewed as a "personality animator". As such we can probably say that young Lillian Friedman essentially blazed the way for Edith Vernick...

Annnnnnd LaVerne Harding also reportedly did some animation at John Sutherland's studio in the latter Forties. And though mostly TV-work was involved, she was employed at Hanna-Barbera from about 1960 through '64.

Edith Vernick was already working for Fleischer as early as 1923 or '24. She was the one who according to Berny Wolf taught him to animate when he was hired by Max Fleischer to be an Inbetweener after having been an inker on KRAZY KAT. While I brought up Lillian Friedman's name, he acknowledged her, but continued to give recognitiion to Edith. This is documented in two interviews I videotaped with him five years apart.

Lillian Friedman did not come to Fleischer Studios until 1931. Edith Vernick had already been head of the Inbetween Department for eight years by the time Lillian came there. Accordingly, Lillian did not "blaze the way" for Edith when she was already there doing some incidental animation work in addition to her supervisory work.

[cpdavison]

Oh, well.

Back to the board of drawing...

Craig D.

:p