- Born
- Died
- Nickname
- Woolie
- Wolfgang Reitherman was a German-born American animator who was one of Disney's Nine Old Men.
He began working for Walt Disney Productions in 1933, along with future Disney legends Ward Kimball and Milt Kahl. The three worked together on a number of classic Walt Disney Animation Studios shorts.
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).
He died in a car accident in 1985 at the age of 75. In 1989 Reitherman was posthumously named a Disney Legend, a hall of fame program that recognizes individuals who have made an extraordinary and integral contribution to The Walt Disney Company.
- IMDb mini biography by: Pedro Borges
- SpouseJanie McMillan(November 26, 1946 - May 22, 1985) (his death, 3 children)
- Children
- Known for "re-using" animation from older films and placing them in newer films (for example animation of Snow White dancing with the Dwarfs in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937) was reused for animation of Maid Marion dancing with Otto the Blacksmith in Robin Hood (1973))
- Often animated fast action sequences (such as the Tramp/Rat fight in _Lady and the Tramp (1957)_) or dances
- Often cast his sons to provide the voice of a main character
- Was part of the inner circle of Disney animators, known as the "nine old men". The other members were Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, Marc Davis, Eric Larson, Ward Kimball, John Lounsbery and Les Clark.
- Served in the U.S. Air Force during World War II and won the Distinguished Flying Cross, having seen action in Africa, China, India and the South Pacific.
- Before joining Walt Disney Studios in 1934, he was employed as a draftsman by Douglas Aircraft.
- Retired from Walt Disney Productions in 1981 after his last produce animated film The Fox and the Hound (1981).
- Everyone thought he was crazy. I mean, Phil Harris in a Rudyard Kipling film? Still, I always trusted Walt. He had a good batting average.
- [on his approach to animating fight scenes] There's that moment where the two adversaries face each other and hopefully you didn't know what was going to happen.
- We used to watch pictures in slow motion at night after work- sports, horse races in slow motion and all you could do was talk about it, you never could grab hold of any fixed formula but finally things came to pass. You knew the weight had to be supported all the time because from birth to death gravity is working on you.
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