September 2, 1902 – Animator and Disney Legend Norm Ferguson is Born
“In the case of Pluto, the man most responsible for defining the character, giving him the personality we know and love, was animator Norm Ferguson, known to his friends and colleagues as ‘Fergy.’” – Film Critic Leonard Maltin
On September 2, 1902, William Norman Ferguson was born in Brooklyn, New York. He worked as a cameraman at the Paul Terry Studios making silent animated films, and one night, when several frames were missing from the film, he animated the missing pages. A director came around the next day asking who animated the frames, as they were the best things in the picture. In 1929, he joined the Disney Studios as a successful New York animator. He animated on more than 75 shorts, including the Academy Award winning Three Little Pigs. Although not considered a great draftsman, Ferguson made up for his lack of formal training with a great skill for storytelling and a way to portray human emotion. He then animated the Wicked Witch in the full-length feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Honest John and Gideon in Pinocchio, basing these villain’s characteristics on vaudeville acts he saw in his youth. Ferguson was also credited for the technique of overlapping action, where parts of a character’s body moves at different times and different speeds, giving the illusion of realistic movement. He then moved to a supervising role for films, as a sequence director for Fantasia and Dumbo, a production supervisor for Saludos Amigos, production supervisor and director for The Three Caballeros, and directing animator for Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. He left the studio in 1953, due to his failing health and career decline, and passed away of a heart attack in 1957 at the age of 55. He was posthumously awarded the Windsor McCay award in 1987, and was named a Disney Legend in 1999.
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