Robert Fred Moore (September 7, 1911 – November 23, 1952), was an American artist and

animator An animator is an artist who creates images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games. Animat ...

for

Walt Disney Animation Studios Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS), sometimes shortened to Disney Animation, is an American animation studio that produces animated feature films and short films for the Walt Disney Company. The studio's current production logo features a s ...

. Often called "Freddie," he was born and raised in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. Despite limited formal art training, he rose to prominence at Disney very quickly in the early 1930s, due to his great natural talent and the tremendous appeal of his drawings. His drawings are still greatly admired by animators and animation fans.

Life and career

Early life and career beginnings

Moore was born in Los Angeles and is best known for being the resident specialist in the animation of

Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is an American cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime icon and mascot of the Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red shorts, large shoes, and white ...

. He is most notable for redesigning the character in 1938 for his landmark role in "

The Sorcerer's Apprentice "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" () is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe written in 1797. The poem is a ballad in 14 stanzas. Story The poem begins as an old sorcerer departs his workshop, leaving his apprentice with chores to perform. Tired of ...

" in '' Fantasia'', a look which remains Mickey's official look to this day. His animation of the earlier Mickey Mouse design was especially memorable in the 1938 short '' Brave Little Tailor'', the last significant appearance of the "pie-eyed" Mickey. Moore's other significant work at the studio included '' The Three Little Pigs'', on which he was the principal animator; animation supervision of the dwarfs in ''

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs "Snow White" is a German fairy tale, first written down in the early 19th century. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'', numbered as Tale 53. The original title was ''Sneewittch ...

''; most of Lampwick in ''

Pinocchio Pinocchio ( , ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of the children's novel, ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' (1883) by Italian writer Carlo Collodi of Florence, Tuscany. Pinocchio was carved by a poor man named Geppetto in a Tuscan vil ...

'' (all of the poolroom scene and until halfway through his transformation to a donkey); and Timothy the mouse in '' Dumbo''. Lampwick, who had red hair and buck teeth, has been largely believed to be a self-caricaturization of Fred Moore, as he was responsible for much of the character's designs and scenes. Moore animated some scenes of the mice from ''

Cinderella "Cinderella", or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a Folklore, folk tale with thousands of variants that are told throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. The protagonist is a you ...

'', some scenes of the oysters as well as some of the later scenes of the White Rabbit in ''

Alice In Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (also known as ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English Children's literature, children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics university don, don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a ...

'', and did the mermaids in the Mermaid Lagoon for ''

Peter Pan Peter Pan is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. A free-spirited and mischievous young boy who can fly and never grows up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood having adventures on the mythical ...

''. Moore was well known around the studio for his drawings of innocently sexy, often

nude Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. While estimates vary, for the first 90,000 years of pre-history, anatomically modern humans were naked, having lost their body hair, living in hospitable climates, and no ...

women A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...

, referred to as "Freddie Moore Girls." Some of his girl designs found their way into Disney films: for example, the

centaur A centaur ( ; ; ), occasionally hippocentaur, also called Ixionidae (), is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse that was said to live in the mountains of Thessaly. In one version o ...

ettes in ''Fantasia'' and the teenage girls in the "All the Cats Join In" segment of ''

Make Mine Music ''Make Mine Music'' is a 1946 American animated Musical film, musical anthology film produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures on April 20, 1946. During World War II, much of Walt Disney's staff was drafted into the United Stat ...

''. (In "All The Cats Join In", Moore personally animated the sequence at the beginning, when the girl answers the telephone and then quickly showers and dresses, through to her scene putting on lipstick in front of her mirror). Moore's enduring influence can also be seen in the design of Casey's daughters in the 1954 short "Casey Bats Again". His

good girl art Good girl art (GGA) is a style of artwork depicting women primarily featured in comic books, comic strips, and pulp magazines. The term was coined by the American Comic Book Company, appearing in its mail order catalogs from the 1930s to the 1970 ...

remains iconic and influential. A model sheet for Ariel in the 1989 Disney film '' The Little Mermaid'' made specific distinctions between the design of that character and a "Freddie Moore Girl." Moore's drawings and design style have come to epitomize the formative years of the studio in between

Ub Iwerks Ubbe Ert "Ub" Iwerks ( ; March 24, 1901 – July 7, 1971), was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, Invention, inventor, and special effects technician, known for his work with Walt Disney Animation Studios in general, and f ...

' departure in 1930 and the ascension of the " Nine Old Men", after which studio design was dominated by animator Milt Kahl, along with storyboard artist Bill Peet, and later production designer Ken Anderson. During the 1930s, Moore, Art Babbitt, Norm Ferguson, Bill Tytla, and Ham Luske were the dominant Disney animators whose pioneering work culminated in 1937 with the breakthrough of ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs''. Moore was a close friend of fellow animators Ward Kimball and

Walt Kelly Walter Crawford Kelly Jr. (August 25, 1913 – October 18, 1973) was an American animator and cartoonist, best known for the comic strip ''Pogo (comic strip), Pogo''. He began his animation career in 1936 at The Walt Disney Company, Walt Disney S ...

, though he apparently had a quieter and more reserved nature than either of them. Many surviving gag drawings by Kelly from the period of ''Pinocchio'' show Kimball as the corrupt Lampwick, with boyish Moore as Pinocchio. Moore and Kimball were also caricatured as song and dance men in the 1941 Mickey Mouse short '' The Nifty Nineties''. Moore makes a brief (and quiet) live-action appearance in the 1941 feature '' The Reluctant Dragon'', along with Kimball and animator Norm Ferguson during one of the studio tour sequences. Kimball has discussed surreptitiously performing some of Moore's Disney work when Moore was too inebriated to finish it. He talked little about his family. His daughters were Sue Moore and Melinda Moore. Later on, his daughter Sue had married and had another daughter named Kelly Hall, who now resides in Tacoma, Washington, with her two children. Melinda married and had two children; her son Christian resides in the Bay Area and her daughter Timothia resides in Los Angeles.

Brief departure and return to ''Disney''

Fred Moore was briefly fired from Disney Studios in 1946 due to his alcoholism. Through former Disney Animator Dick Lundy, he was hired at

Walter Lantz Productions Walter Lantz Productions was an American animation studio. It was in operation from 1928 to 1949 and then from 1950 to 1972, and was the principal supplier of animation for Universal Pictures. The studio was originally formed as Universal Carto ...

, where he redesigned the characters of

Woody Woodpecker Woody Woodpecker is a cartoon character that appeared in theatrical short films produced by the Walter Lantz Productions, Walter Lantz Studio and Universal Animation Studios, Universal Animation Studio and distributed by Universal Pictures sinc ...

and Andy Panda during a two-year stint that ended with his return to Disney in 1948 due to Lantz temporarily closing his studio because of financial Issues.

Accident and death

Moore was already at work animating the mermaids and the lost boys for ''

'' when both he and his second wife, Virginia, were injured in a traffic accident early on the evening of Saturday, November 22, 1952, when their car was struck head-on while she made a U-turn on a rural highway through Big Tujunga Canyon near the

Angeles National Forest The Angeles National Forest (ANF) of the United States Forest Service is located in the San Gabriel Mountains and Sierra Pelona Mountains, primarily within Los Angeles County in Southern California. The ANF manages a majority of the San Gabri ...

. The Moores were reportedly returning from a day spent watching an

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

game with fellow Disney artist

Jack Kinney John Ryan Kinney (March 29, 1909 – February 9, 1992)Lenburg (2006), pp. 180 was an American animator, director and producer of animated shorts. Kinney is the older brother of fellow Disney animator Dick Kinney. Early life Jack Kinney was born ...

. Moore died the following day at St. Joseph's Hospital in

Burbank, California Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank had a Census-estimated population of 102,755 as of 2023. The city was ...

, located across the street from the Disney Studios, from a

cerebral hemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as hemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain (i.e. the parenchyma), into its ventricles, or into both. An ICH is a type of bleeding within the skull and one kind of stro ...

resulting from a concussion. Moore is interred at

Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills) Forest Lawn Memorial Park – Hollywood Hills is one of the six Forest Lawn cemeteries in Southern California, United States. It is located at 6300 Forest Lawn Drive in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. History The first Fo ...

in a plot overlooking the Disney Studios. Fred Moore was posthumously inducted as a Disney Legend by the studio in 1995, and posthumously received the animation industry's Winsor McCay Award in 1983.

Filmography

References

External links

*
Blackwing Diaries blog postings on Fred Moore--with extensive examples of artwork.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927215838/http://www.cartoonbrew.com/old-brew/freddie-moore-slandered-again A Cartoon Brew editorial from Amid Amidi exposing inaccuracies about Fred Moore in Jeff Lenburg's ''Who's Who in Animated Cartoons''.] {{DEFAULTSORT:Moore, Fred 1911 births 1952 deaths 20th-century American illustrators Animators from Los Angeles Road incident deaths in California Walt Disney Animation Studios people Walter Lantz Productions people Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)