Wolfgang Reitherman

Wolfgang Reitherman (June 26, 1909 – May 22, 1985), also known and sometimes credited as Woolie Reitherman, was a German-born American animator who was one of Disney's Nine Old Men.
==Career==
Reitherman began working for Disney in 1934, along with future Disney legends Ward Kimball and Milt Kahl. The three worked together on a number of classic Disney shorts, including The Band Concert, Music Land, and Elmer Elephant and in all, Reitherman worked on various Disney feature films produced from 1937 to 1981, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Slave in the Magic Mirror) to The Fox and the Hound (co-producer). He did the climactic dinosaur fight in Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring in Fantasia, the Headless Horseman chase in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" section in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, the Crocodile in Peter Pan, and Maleficent as a dragon in Sleeping Beauty (the former three he animated and the latter he directed).
Beginning with 1961's One Hundred and One Dalmatians, "Woolie", as he was called by friends, served as Disney's chief animation director. One of Reitherman's productions, the 1968 short Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. He also served as a producer and sequence director, and starred as himself in the 1941 feature film The Reluctant Dragon. All three of Reitherman's sons — Bruce, Richard and Robert — provided voices for Disney characters, including Mowgli in The Jungle Book, Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, and Wart in The Sword in the Stone.
Reitherman directed several Disney animated feature films including: One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), The Sword in the Stone (1963), The Jungle Book (1967), The Aristocats (1970), Robin Hood (1973), The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh (1977), and The Rescuers (1977). During his tenure, he frequently used "recycled" or limited animation from prior works, presumably because it was a safer method for a quality product, though it was in fact more labor intensive, not because it was supposedly cheaper. Note this is similar to, but not the same as, rotoscoping.
==Personal life and death==
Born in Munich, Germany, Reitherman's family moved to America when he was a child. After attending Pasadena Junior College and briefly working as a draftsman for Douglas Aircraft, Reitherman returned to school at the Chouinard Art Institute, graduating in 1933. Reitherman served in World War II for the United States Air Force, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross after serving in Africa, China, India and the South Pacific. Reitherman died in a single-car accident near his Burbank, California home in 1985, aged 75. Reitherman was posthumously named a Disney Legend in 1989.Disney legend Wolfgang Reitherman profile, d23.com; accessed January 21, 2016.
==Filmography==
Year	Film 	Director	Producer	Animator	Notes
1937	Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 	No 	No 	Yes 	as Woolie Reitherman
1940	Pinocchio 	No 	No 	Yes 	as Woolie Reitherman
1940	Fantasia 	No 	No 	Yes 	
1941	The Reluctant Dragon 	No 	No 	Yes 	as Himself, as Wooly ReithermanPackage film
1941	Dumbo 	No 	No 	Yes 	as Woolie Reitherman
1942	Saludos Amigos 	No 	No 	Yes 	as Wooly ReithermanPackage film
1947	Fun and Fancy Free 	No 	No 	Yes 	as Woolie ReithermanPackage film
1949	The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad	No 	No 	Yes 	as Wooly ReithermanPackage film
1950	Cinderella 	No 	No 	Yes 	
1951	Alice in Wonderland 	No 	No 	Yes 	
1953	Peter Pan 	No 	No 	Yes 	
1955	Lady and the Tramp 	No 	No 	Yes 	
1959	Sleeping Beauty 	Yes 	No 	No 	
1960	Goliath II 	Yes 	No 	No 	Short film
1961	101 Dalmatians 	Yes 	No 	No 	
1963	The Sword in the Stone 	Yes 	No 	No 	
1967	The Jungle Book 	Yes 	No 	No 	
1970	The Aristocats 	Yes 	Yes 	No 	
1973	Robin Hood 	Yes 	Yes 	No 	
1977	The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh	Yes 	Yes 	No 	Package film
1977	The Rescuers 	Yes 	Yes 	No 	
1981	The Fox and the Hound 	No 	Yes 	No 	
==Notes==
==External links==
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Category:1909 births
Category:1985 deaths
Category:People from Munich
Category:German emigrants to the United States
Category:American animators
Category:Animated film directors
Category:Road incident deaths in California
Category:Directors of Best Animated Short Academy Award winners
Category:Disney people
Category:Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States)
Category:American people of German descent
Category:American artistsCategory:Pages stolen off Wikipedia