Acclaimed animator who created Roger Rabbit dies aged 86

Authored by theguardian.com and submitted by BunyipPouch
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Richard Williams, who worked on hit films such as The Pink Panther, won three Oscars and three Baftas

The acclaimed animator Richard Williams, who worked on hit films including Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Pink Panther, has died.

The 86-year-old triple Oscar and triple Bafta winner, who was born in Toronto, Canada, and moved to Britain in the 1950s, died at his home in Bristol on Friday, his family announced.

Richard Williams: the master animator Read more

Williams was the animation director on the 1988 blockbuster Who Framed Roger Rabbit – creating characters including Roger and Jessica Rabbit.

Williams won a Bafta as well as two Oscars for his work on the live-action animated film starring Bob Hoskins.

Williams also animated the title sequences for the 1970s comedy classics The Return Of The Pink Panther and The Pink Panther Strikes Again, and worked on Casino Royale.

Williams has previously credited Snow White – which he saw at the age of five – as having made a tremendous impression on him.

“I always wanted, when I was a kid, to get to Disney. I was a clever little fellow so I took my drawings and I eventually got in,” Williams told the BBC in 2008. “They did a story on me, and I was in there for two days, which you can imagine what it was like for a kid.”

After that he said he was advised to learn how to draw properly and admitted he “lost all interest in animation” until he was 23 – throwing himself into art.

He said he was drawn back to the craft because his “paintings were trying to move”.

His first film, The Little Island, was released in 1958 and won a Bafta. He won his first Oscar in 1971 for his animated adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.

During his lengthy career, Williams also wrote a how-to book called The Animator’s Survival Kit and was animating and writing until the day he died.

disjux on August 17th, 2019 at 15:09 UTC »

RIP, 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' is probably one of the most technically difficult movies ever made

RansomGoddard on August 17th, 2019 at 15:01 UTC »

Everyone should watch The Thief and the Cobbler. Even in its massively truncated state the quality of its vision is readily apparent.

scaredofcheese on August 17th, 2019 at 14:35 UTC »

A true great. His influence on the industry and the art of animation cannot be overstated. My copy of his The Animator’s Survival Kit is so worn and disintegrated that I keep it in a ring binder. RIP.