A discussion with Don Bluth - Part One

by Gil Benbrook

From his years spent at Walt Disney Animation Studios, working on such iconic Disney films as Sleeping Beauty and Robin Hood, through his time running his own animation company and directing An American Tail, Land Before Time and Anastasia, Don Bluth is a living legend in the world of animation. His partnership with 20th Century Fox is what brought him to Arizona, to oversee their animation studio in Phoenix, and it is where he now runs his own theatre company. Part One of my interview with Don covers his animation years as well as how he ended up running a theatre company in his own living room in Scottsdale before opening up the Don Bluth Front Row Theatre right off the intersection of Shea and the 101. Their production of another Disney hit film, Mary Poppins, just opened last week.

Let's first talk about your background and your animation experience. You were born in Texas, raised in Utah and California, and then you worked for Disney on several hit films, including Sleeping Beauty, Robin Hood, The Rescuers and serving as the animation director for Pete's Dragon.

“One of the heroes in my life was Walt Disney. When I saw Snow White, when I was just four, I somehow knew it was drawings that were used to produce the moving image on the screen and so I got pencils and tried to mimic what I saw on the screen. I collected all the artwork I could find and I copied it, as that’s how you learn. And every time a Disney picture came out I was there, watching it and gaining new inspiration for what that man was able to do. The thing that impressed me most was the strength of the story. The story of Snow White was pretty scary, especially for a four year old, though I really don’t think they would even make such a picture these days. As I grew up that dream of being a part of all of that only grew stronger."

Jori Mosier and Sky Donovan in Mary Poppins
photo: Wade Moran

Did you take drawing classes or did it just come naturally?

"I never had any drawing lessons. I practiced at it but everyone around me kept telling me to prepare myself to do something practical, but I just knew that I wanted to be involved in animation. So I kinda didn’t listen to them at all, but I fortunately had a mother who was pretty much fanning the flames and saying ‘yes, follow your dreams and go where you think you should go.’ I graduated high school and since my parents insisted I go to college, I spent one year at Brigham Young University but didn’t like it at all."

So how did you get to California?

"Before BYU our family moved to California. My dad needed a job and now I was closer to the Mouse House. We moved to Santa Monica so I was right there. I took a tour of the Disney studios in Burbank and when I was there they were very gracious to me and I told them ‘I want to come and work here’ and they said ‘sure you do.’ But they gave me a whole stack of cells from Peter Pan which they were making at that time."

I guess they had no idea how valuable those cells would become?

"Not at all. It was a stack of cells about six inches high. There was a guy named Bob Jaboe who said ‘let me get you some things to take home.’ He at least sensed that I was serious. I was about 15 or 16 at the time."

So how did you end up getting job at Disney?

"I called them up and said I’d like very much to come in and talk to you about getting a job. They said I’d need to bring a portfolio but I had no idea what that was. So they told me it was a collection of my drawings. I said ‘oh yes, I have that.’ I didn’t, so I stayed up all night making some drawings to put between two pieces of cardboard. The next morning when I got to Disney they took the drawings, went away for a little while, then came back and said they were going to go show them to someone else. Twice they left the room and then came back and said ‘ok, you’re hired.’ On my first day of work I went in to a room called the bullpen. There were about 8 other artists there who were doing practice in-betweens (the drawings that come between two major images that result in the appearance of the image moving). And after a few weeks of that they placed us next to an animator, and they placed me with John Lounsbery, who became my mentor. I was watching him draw."

So that was your training?

"Oh, nothing could have been better! That when on for about a year, but this is the part I didn’t know, I was young and naïve and didn’t know that I passed a lot of people up who had been trying to get that position for years. I didn’t know I’d hurt a lot of feelings. So a lot of people resented me. I was John’s assistant for a year and then the Bishop of the Mormon Church I belong to called me up and said they wanted to send me on a mission. I thought ‘oh no.’"

And you went to Argentina, right?

"Yes, Argentina. And here are my parents thinking ‘oh great’ so I couldn’t say no, which meant I had to stop, which made John Lounsbery very unhappy.  I was going for 30 months to a Spanish country where I didn’t speak Spanish. I do believe in karma, and so I believe that because I went to serve God for that time made everything thereafter happen."

Did you have any interesting encounters with Walt Disney himself?

"Absolutely, though the best is probably the first time I met him. We used to go out at noon to play volleyball and I hadn’t yet met him at that time. Afterwards we were all excited and getting ready to go back to work when I ran into someone and fell to the ground. And I looked up, but I couldn’t see who it was because of the sun, so it was just a silhouette. When I realized it was Walt I was extremely embarrassed but it reminded me of the scene in Bambi where the great, large stag is standing there and the poor little deer doesn’t know what to say. That’s what it was like. I remember him saying ‘young man, if you will slow down you will go much further in life.’ So he taught me that valuable lesson. I knew that Walt knew who all of his employees were because it was rumored that at night he would roam around the studio, look on people’s desks at the drawings they were making and sometimes he would take drawings out of the waste basket, put it back on their desk, and note ‘this is the good one. Keep this one.’ So he was watching, he knew. The feeling of knowing that you were making drawings that were going in to a Disney picture was exhilarating, and it’s a feeling I never forgot."


Did you go right back to Disney when you came home from your mission in Argentina?

"No I didn’t. The mission was very difficult. I finally got to speak Spanish but the time was filled with hardship and joy and all of the things that expand you as a person and I began to feel things that I hadn’t felt before. When I came home I didn’t know what to do so I went back to BYU and decided that where I was really void was in literature so I went into the English department and it was difficult because I hadn’t read anything, no books, nothing. I got out of high school and hadn’t even read one book. But I forced myself to succeed as you have to get a B+ to pass. Later on, it was obvious to me that without that experience I wouldn’t have known what ‘story’ was. I wouldn’t have known what makes a good picture or about the dramatic rules that make things work in a play. So I graduated from BYU, and I got the B+! They offered me a teaching assistant job at BYU but I went back to California and started working for Filmation, which was doing tv animation. But I knew we weren’t making anything that was great art so I went back to Disney in 1971. They were making Robin Hood and they wanted to make me an animator. So I began to read and do personal tests to learn how to animate. So I animated on that film but the director of Robin Hood was Wolfgang Reitherman and he said to me ‘we’re not going to make you an animator, we need directors and the nine old men who have done this for years are gonna retire, so you’re gonna direct.’ So I started directing on Pete’s Dragon. Then something happened at Disney. Walt died in 1966 and the films started looking different. Even on The Rescuers they started taking out things like shadows and colors of the eyes, because it’s too expensive. So that’s when I realized that we weren’t going to be able to change the corporate structure so if we want to bring back the golden days of Disney we have to leave. And there were about 17 of us who were working together in my garage to make a little film to learn the lessons we had to learn."

You then started your own animation company, as well as formed relationships with others, creating such iconic animated hits as The Secret of NIMH, The Land Before Time, An American Tail and Anastasia, which was one of the films you did for Fox. Was working with Fox Animation how you got to Phoenix? As wasn't their animation studio based here? And if so, why the decision to open up the company in Phoenix?

"When we made Secret of NIMH it was an absolute financial disaster. So then we made a video game Dragon’s Lair and shortly after that Jerry Goldsmith showed Steven Spielberg Secret of NIMH and he got excited as he thought that era of animation was gone. So he wanted to meet us to see if we could make a film together and that lead to An American Tail and then Land Before Time. But Universal Pictures didn’t want to give us a green light on Land Before Time because they thought it was too expensive so that’s when we went to Ireland. We were there for eight years. There were 460 employees in Ireland and the government paid us to train them, so we became a school and produced movies at the same time. And then Fox stepped in and told us to come over to them and start an animation studio for them here in Phoenix. We made three pictures for them, including Anastasia. And then everything started going crazy in the CG world, so computer graphics took off. I thought ‘well, we had a good run.’ "

Now you're running your own theatre company in Scottsdale. How does a successful, famed animator get into the theater business?

"Years ago, back in California I had a theatre with my brother, called Bluth Brothers Theater in Culver City. For two years we produced a lot of musicals and plays. But I was afraid to direct at that time in my life so my brother did that and I was just watching, afraid of the whole process. But after working for Disney I realized that animation is just blocking and that you can just as easily do that with people.  There was a period of about ten years after the Fox films where nothing happened. But during that time I had started directing some skits for the kids over at the Church, and they were just loving it. So we started producing the shows in my home. I could get about 45 seats in my living room and I did that for eight years. Then the adults came in and kept saying ‘why don’t you put us in the plays.' "

Did you neighbors every wonder what was going on at your home?

"No, as we just put their children in the plays! But once the adults got involved in the plays we then started producing more than just youth shows since the youth productions were more dictated by the school schedule and when kids were available. So we produced a lot of shows and there were always dozens of people coming and going with all of the shows we produced. I knew it was time to move out of the house when I had to put in a second septic tank!"

Part Two of my interview with Don Bluth will appear in two weeks.