September 7, 1911 – Animator and Disney Legend Fred Moore is Born
“Animation came too easily to him. He didn’t have to exert any real effort.” – Animator Les Clark
On September 7, 1911, Robert Fred Moore was born in Los Angeles, California. Despite limited training, he displayed a natural talent for animation, and worked at the Chouinard Art Institute as a janitor in exchange for art lessons. In 1930, at the age of 18, Moore was hired by the Disney studios. His first major assignment was on the Silly Symphony Santa’s Workshop in 1932, but his best known short assignment was that of a principal animator on Three Little Pigs. Moore was also known as the best animator of Mickey Mouse, creating the redesign of Mickey first seen in The Pointer in 1939, which was then used in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” segment of Fantasia. Caricatures of Moore have been seen in Disney animation: once in the Mickey Mouse short The Nifty Nineties as part of the song and dance act “Fred and Ward: Two Clever Boys from Illinois,” and the other is the character of Lampwick from Pinocchio, which is considered a self-caricature. In 1946, after a series of personal and professional problems, Moore was fired from the studio. He joined Walter Lantz, redesigning the character of Woody Woodpecker, before being hired once again by Disney in 1948. Sadly, in 1952, Moore was involved in a car accident, and was killed from a cerebral hemorrhage. He is still regarded as one of the finest Disney animators, and was awarded the Windsor McCay award in 1983, and inducted as a Disney Legend in 1995.
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