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Bill Tytla

Vladimir Peter Tytla was one of the original Disney animators and is considered by many to be the best character animator working during The Golden Age of Hollywood animation. Known as "Bill" Tytla, he is particularly noted for the animation of Grumpy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Chernobog in the Night on Bald Mountain sequence from Fantasia.

Early Years

Vladimir Peter Tytla was born on October 25, 1904 in Yonkers, New York. His Ukrainian immigrant parents recognized and encouraged their sons talent. In 1914 (Tytla was 9) he visited Manhattan to attend Winsor McCay's vaudeville act, Gertie the Dinosaur. He never forgot it, and some say it changed his life forever.

Tytla attended the New York Evening School of Industrial Design while still in high school, but eventually high school lost out to his interest in art and he quit. In 1920 at age 16 Tytla was working for the Paramount animation studio in New York lettering title cards. He was nicknamed "Tytla the Titler". His first animation experience was on Mutt & Jeff shorts at Raoul Barre's in the Bronx and Joy and Bloom Phable at John Terry's Greenwich Village studio. Johns brother Paul soon hired Tytla to work on his Aesop's Fables. Within three years he was earning a very good salary as an animator and supporting his family. Animation at that time didn't require such good drawing skills and Tytla dreamed of becoming a fine artist. He took up his studies again at the Art Students League and studied under Boardman Robinson. In 1929 he sailed for Europe with some of his school friends to study painting in Paris. There he not only studied painting, but sculpture with Charles Despiau. This has been attributed to the weight and three-dimensionality of his work. In Europe he was able to see first hand the masterpieces he had only read about. True to his nature of never wanting to be second best he came to the conclusion that he could never top these masters and destroyed most of his work.

Back in America

Tytla returned to the states with the attitude that he could become a great master of animation by incorporating his rich knowledge of art. Now animated shorts had sound which in turn brought a new enthusiasm and a need for talented animators. Paul Terry offered Bill a job right away. There he met animator Art Babbitt who became his close friend and roommate. Art eventually left to work for Walt Disney because of the challenging work and good working conditions. For two years Art tried to entice Bill to come out to Hollywood, but Bill didn't want to leave his family and a well paying job during the Depression. Finally in 1934 Tytla flew to Hollywood. He was was very impressed and accepted the job even at a lower salary than he was being paid at Terry-toons. It didn't take long for Walt to realize what he had and his responsibilities as well as his wages increased dramatically. Within a year, he was on of the first animators assigned to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Tytla and Babbitt quickly became two of Disney's top-salaried artists, and again shared a residence – this time a Tuxedo Terrace house complete with a maid. He continued to send money home and purchased for his family 150 acres of farmland in East Lyme, Connecticut. Babbitt started after hours "Action Analysis" classes and brought in Donald Graham to teach. Tytla was an eager participator in these classes (later to become officially sanctioned by Walt) which have been credited with the some of the phenomenal leaps in the quality of animation during this period.

During his "probationary" year in 1935 Tytla worked on shorts such as Mickey's Fire Brigade animating the broadly comic Clarabelle Cow, and The Cookie Carnival animating the gingerbread boy and girl as well as the rivalry between the Angel Food and Devil's Food cakes. He also animated his first "heavy", a bully rooster dancing the Carioca in Cock O' the Walk. The great Grim Natwick remarked "Bill hovered over his drawing board like a giant vulture protecting a nest filled with golden eggs, he was an intense worker – eager, nervous, absorbed....Key drawings were whittled out with impassioned pencil thrusts that tore holes in the animation paper." His work didn't go un-noticed by Walt Disney and he was one of the first animators working on Snow White.

Fred Moore and Tytla were responsible for much of the design of the film and the definition of the personalities of the seven dwarfs. One of Tytlas famous scenes from the film (as described by John Canemaker) is where woman-hating Grumpy is kissed by Snow White. As he brusquely walks away, an internal warmth generated by the kiss gradually slows him, bringing a soft smile and sigh to his lips, revealing his true feeling of love. Grumpy's inner feeling are portrayed solely through pantomime – in his telling facial expressions, his body language, and the timing of his reactions.

Marriage

One evening in 1936 in one of Don Grahams art classes, a vibrant and beautiful 22-year-old actress and fashion model from Seattle named Adrienne le Clerc posed for the animators, including Tytla. She shared his volcanic temperament, but admitted "My glass was half-filled with enthusiasm, his often half-empty with self-doubts. We were, however, definitely yin and yang." Their thirty-year marriage began on April 21 1938.

Continued Disney Career

Tytlas next assignment was Stomboli, an explosive puppeteer and kidnapper in Pinocchio. Larger-than-life, a monster of mercurial moods – comic and menacing by turns – Stomboli is one of Disney's most three-dimensional and frightening villains.

"Bill was powerful muscular, high-strung and sensitive, with a tremendous ego." wrote Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in their book The Disney Villain. "Everything was 'feelings' with Bill. Whatever he animated had the inner feelings of his characters expressed through very strong acting. He did not just get inside Stromboli, he was Stromboli and he lived that part."

In a Mickey Mouse short released in 1938, Brave Little Tailor, Tytla animated the giant who was as dumb as he was huge. The character "became the model for all giants throughout the industry from gags to personality," according to Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas.

Early in 1938, Tytla animated the old magician in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, which would eventually become a segment in Fantasia. The character from Fantasia he is more known for of coarse is Chernobog the black god from the Night on Bald Mountain sequence. It's often said that Chernobog was based on actor Bela Lugosi, and Walt did bring him in to do live action reference for the character. Bill however already had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to do and didn't like Bela's interpretation of the character. In stead he had Wilfred Jackson act out the part for him and thats what he used as live action reference. The scene is pure pantomime, but shows the full emotional range of the character, from unabashed glee to profound despair, expressing physical pain at the sound of the church bells at dawn. Chernobog is considered Tytla's supreme achievement in personality animation and marks the zenith of his career.

By 1940 Tytla was tiring of animating heavies. Not one to want to be typecast he requested as his next assignment Dumbo, the baby elephant ridiculed and rejected because of his big ears.

This time his reference was is own infant son, Peter. The intent was to do something un-theatrical and sincere, to try to put the personality of a human child into that of an elephant so that it rings true. The happy sequence of Dumbo splashing and blowing bubbles in a bathtub, or playing hide-and-seek between his mother's legs contrasts with the later scene in which Dumbo visits his mother in prison. Dumbo, climbing onto his mother's trunk shows a slight apprehension as she begins to swing him gently back and forth. He relaxes, yet his sadness over the temporary nature of this maternal solace always there. When they finally must part, the slow reluctant pull of Dumbo's trunk away from his mother's is heart breaking.

The Strike

While Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs was hugely successful the following films had a hard time making money due to the war in Europe cutting of nearly 50% of there revenue. This led to staff layoff and broken promises with regard to job security, raises and bonuses. While the top animators like Tytla and Babbit were highly paid, they were all to aware of the low wages being paid to assistants and production people. Babbit even went as far as paying his assistant out of his own pocket. In early 1941 Tytlas good friend Art Babbitt was fired for union activities. The day after he led over 300 Disney studio employees in a strike, demanding union representation. To Walt's surprise and dismay, Tytla joined the strike line. "I was for the company union, and I went on strike because my friends were on strike," said Tytla. " I was sympathetic with their views, but I never wanted to do anything against Walt." The strike lasted over two months and was so divisive that it profoundly altered the course of American character animation. As the strike ended, America entered the war and the Golden age was effectively over.

Tytla returned to the studio, but "there was too much tension and electricity in the air," according to Adrianne Tytla. With Vladimir, "everything was instinctive and intuitive, and now the vibes were all wrong." Due to the economics of the studio at the time, assignments were less challenging. Tytla animated a baby airplane and a Brazilian parrot in Saludos Amigos. His small but juicy final portrayals at Disney were a witch and a Nazi teacher in the short Education for Death and climactic battle between a giant octopus and an American eagle in the feature Victory Through Air Power (both 1943).

Tytlas perception that he was unwelcome at the studio; less challenging work; his wife's three-year long illness with tuberculosis; fear of Japanese attack; and a desire to live on his Connecticut farm eventually led him to the decision to leave the studio. He resigned from the Disney studio on February 24, 1943, an action he regretted for the remaining twenty-five years of his life

Post-Disney

After leaving the Disney studio Tytla worked for several companies including going back to TerryToons for a short while. At the Paramount/ Famous Studios he directed several Popeye short. At Famous he also directed the Little Lulu and later Little Audrey shorts in which he used his daughter Tammy as the inspiration. He also worked for former Disney colleague