alifornia, U.S. Occupation producer, director, animator, screenwriter, actor Years active 1916 - 1982 Religion Christian Spouse(s) Doris Hollister (div. 1940) Grace Stafford (1940-1992) Walter Benjamin Lantz (April 27, 1899[1] – March 22, 1994) was an American cartoonist, animator, film producer, and director, best known for founding Walter Lantz Productions and creating Woody Woodpecker.[2][3] Contents [

to open their own cartoon studio, and hired away most of the Harman-Ising staff to do so.[3][13] The final Happy Harmonies short, The Little Bantamweight, was released in March 1938, and Harman and Ising went on to establish a new studio to do freelance animation work for Walt Disney, only to come back.
For the 1934 MGM musical film Hollywood Party, Walt Disney animation studio created an animated sequence in Technicolor called The Hot Choc-Late Soldiers, and is one of a few examples where Disney produced animation for other studios. The movie also contained a sequence with Jimmy Durante interacting with an animated Mickey Mouse. In 1936, Disney's animators were overworked with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the Harman-Ising studio provided artists to work on the feature and the Silly Symphonies short Merbabies in exchange to artist training.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer charactersWalter Lantz
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Walter Lantz
Walter Lantz 1990 photo D Ramey Logan.jpg
Lantz in 1990, with paintings of Woody Woodpecker.
Born    Walter Benjamin Lantz
April 27, 1899
New Rochelle, New York, U.S.
Died    March 22, 1994 (aged 94)
Burbank, California, U.S.
Occupation    producer, director, animator, screenwriter, actor
Years active    1916 - 1982
Religion    Christian
Spouse(s)    Doris Hollister (div. 1940)
Grace Stafford (1940-1992)
Walter Benjamin Lantz (April 27, 1899[1] – March 22, 1994) was an American cartoonist, animator, film producer, and director, best known for founding Walter Lantz Productions and creating Woody Woodpecker.[2][3]
Contents  [hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Early years and start in animation
1.2 The Oswald era
1.3 The Woody Woodpecker era
1.4 Retirement
2 Characters
3 Awards
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
Biography[edit]

Early years and start in animation[edit]
Lantz was born in New Rochelle, New York to Italian immigrant parents, Francesco Paolo Lantz (formerly Lanza) and Maria Gervasi from Calitri.[4] According to Joe Adamson's biography, The Walter Lantz Story, Lantz's father was given his new surname by an immigration official who Anglicized it. Walter Lantz was always interested in art, completing a mail order drawing