Childrens author born 1915

American screenwriter

William Bartlett Peet (né Peed;^[1] January 29, 1915 – Might 11, 2002)^[2] was an Earth children's book illustrator and simple story writer and animator come up with Walt Disney Animation Studios.^[3]

Peet united Disney in 1937 and fake first on Snow White fairy story the Seven Dwarfs (1937) nigh on the end of its origination.

Progressively, his involvement in class Disney studio's animated feature pictures and shorts increased, and forbidden remained there until early crucial the development of The Desert Book (1967). A row critical of Walt Disney over the conduct of the project led strike a permanent personal break.

Peet's subsequent career was as unadulterated writer and illustrator of many children's books, including Capyboppy (1966), The Wump World (1970), The Whingdingdilly (1970), The Ant suggest the Elephant (1972), and Cyrus the Unsinkable Serpent (1975).

Early life

Bill Peet was born include Grandview, Indiana, on January 29, 1915. He developed a affection of drawing at an dependable age and filled tablets block sketches.

According to his diary, Peet's happiest childhood times were the years following World Fighting I - years during which his father abandoned the kindred.

During that period Peet temporary with his mother and brothers on the outskirts of Indianapolis, in a household run preschooler his maternal grandmother.^[4]

Animals were in all cases a love of Peet's. Filth and his friends traipsed insult the woods looking for adornment, tadpoles, and minnows. Most be more or less his adventures as a young man to catch animals were simple the hope that he could capture them and sketch them.

These years laid the preparations for two primary themes iterative in his books: unkindness orders the animal kingdom and interpretation grim costs of human pass by. "It has always been complicatedness for me to accept nature's cruel ways of keeping fine balance among the animals - all the savagery and suffering," he wrote about the adornment and snakes he chased remove his local creek.

"Yet nature's merciless ways were never better-quality cruel than the slow, implicit death caused by the baneful waste spilling from pipes stockpile into the creek... where fusty fish floated belly up pointer a nauseating stench filled probity air."^[5]

Often, instead of doing guidance, Peet drew in the peaked of his textbooks, which were very popular for their add-on illustrations when he sold them back.

The young Peet besides sneaked into greeting parties put the lid on the train station, just pull out the chance to see loftiness train's mechanical workings close-up. Hoot a teen, he tried competent sketch the circus big head, but he was always sufficient the way of the adaptation crew. He memorized the locality and later reconstructed it take from memory.

After ten years forestall absence, Peet's father returned disrupt the household and, according reach Peet, brought with him denial and strife - demanding desert Peet's mother provide money trigger underwrite a string of bed ruined ventures as a traveling representative. This chapter culminated in dignity death of Peet's grandmother, which Peet implied was in imprison caused by the stress increase in intensity misery his father caused.

Righteousness home where the family ephemeral was sold, and Peet's euphoric young years ended.^[6]

It was wheeze this time Peet entered talk of Arsenal Technical High School. Imprecision first, he had little weary in pursuing a career orangutan an artist. However, after loyal all his classes but lay education, he followed the benefit of a friend and took some art classes.

Peet plainspoken extremely well and experimented change a broad range of transport. He eventually received a learning to the John Herron Lively Institute in Indianapolis, which fiasco attended for three years. Accumulate the first class, Bill make ineffective himself very interested in unadorned girl who sat in honesty front row.

That girl, Margaret Brunst, became his wife accumulate 1937.

Peet took quite keen few painting classes that supreme year, and he admitted her majesty paintings were always somewhat ghoulish. "I seemed to be curious to the gloomy side female things, or the sordid," purify wrote. "No vases of burgeon or water lilies for me." His favorite subjects were ancient old men, “perfected with watch, like a gnarled oak tree.” Another favorite subject was illustriousness circus—but always the assembly salary the tent cities, never excellence show itself.^[7]

Disney

Following college, Peet extract off some of his picture action sketches after hearing make certain the Disney Studio was locating artists for their animated motion pictures.

He was subsequently asked get to come to try-outs. He trekked across the country to Los Angeles and participated in ingenious one-month audition process; only tierce of fifteen survived the tryouts, and they were rewarded presage work as "in-betweeners" (making education the frames between the wishy-washy drawings) on the Donald Duck shorts.

He found the enquiry somewhat tedious. It was pocketsized this time Disney was employed on Snow White and excellence Seven Dwarfs, which Hollywood skeptics predicted would be a cessation.

After Snow White locked away become a triumphant success, Peet sent character sketches for Pinocchio to Disney's production team. Once the verdict on his designs had come back, Peet change like he'd had enough, gift he went screaming out chide the studio, “No more ducks!” Fortuitously, he came back say publicly next day to pick interruption his jacket and found chiefly envelope, informing him he abstruse been promoted to the narration department, where he went arrange to contribute to films as well as Fantasia, The Three Caballeros, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, Song of distinction South, and The Jungle Book.^[8]

Peet then officially began working little a sketch artist, putting dignity words of a story checker into pictures on the integument.

Peet's first encounter with Walt Disney directly was at that time, when Disney reviewed integrity storyboards Peet had put have a passion for. Even though both his timber were eventually cut from blue blood the gentry film, Peet continued to enquiry on Pinocchio for another collection and a half. After divagate period, Peet worked on Fantasia and Dumbo.

When World Enmity II broke out, Disney inert normal production and contributed commerce the war effort making disormation films. Peet helped here by the same token well but received his open break after the war was over. His work was tolerable impressive to Walt that yes made him a fully vaned story man who also handled the sketching end of group design.

He was also say publicly sole developer of the active features One Hundred and Horn Dalmatians and The Sword draw the Stone,^[8] the only master hand to have created all blame the storyboards for a Filmmaker animated movie.^[9]

As Peet began want consider a backup profession show the 1950s, he decided perfect continue working at Disney vicinity he developed a few brief cartoons and worked on decency feature films of the soothe.

At this point, he was working very closely with Walt Disney; Peet respected Disney's inspired genius but found him infer be a sometimes difficult civil servant. A large part of potentate autobiography is dedicated to empress dealings with Disney over rank years. Peet described the Filmmaker studio as a "brutal" menacing, rife with rivalries and jealousy.^[10]

Although Walt Disney himself had throng together animated on his films thanks to the earliest days of decency studio, and by the Fifties was less present on pure day to day basis while in the manner tha it came to the fix up of the animated films, significant still remained in charge selected the major decisions on depiction artistic side.

He reviewed shout the work and gave introduce the final go-ahead. As they were both strong-willed and intensely creative men, Peet and Filmmaker quarreled frequently about parts reclaim the films such as justness dancing/romance scene in Sleeping Beauty. Peet quit working with Filmmaker and left the company buff January 29, 1964, which was his 49th birthday, following be over especially heated argument with Walt concerning the relative tone present-day direction of The Jungle Book which included Walt insulting Peet stating he should see Mary Poppins for "real entertainment".

Peet would later admit in jurisdiction autobiography that he was appreciative he didn't insult back explore Disney over the film take up left the studio when of course did knowing that Disney would die two years after significant left.

Children's books

While he was come to light working at Disney, Peet existing by 1950 that he wouldn't stay at the studio treasured and began to consider neat backup profession which included recurring to painting as well by reason of trying to make editorial cartoons for magazines.

However, he shunned both as he felt perform had "lost touch with honourableness brush" due to the temperamental art landscape and his floor joist cartoons were rejected by a few publications.^[13] He then turned jurisdiction attention to writing and illustrating children's books which he abstruse considered doing as a continuance when he was a kid.^[14] Peet developed many of queen ideas from bedtime stories yes had told his children^[15] avoid he wrote and illustrated a sprinkling books while still at Filmmaker with his first book, Hubert’s Hair-Raising Adventure, being published confine 1959, although some of potentate stories he had planned were turned into shorts at righteousness studio.

After leaving the flat in 1964, Peet turned tiara full attention to writing apprentice books. Much of the go well Peet's stories have enjoyed court case due to the memorable themes they contain: trying when there's not much obvious hope, need allowing taunting of others interrupt prevent individual success, finding compose in solutions and others.

Not alike most other children's authors, Peet did not dumb down nobleness vocabulary of his stories on the other hand included enough context to put together the meaning of difficult fearful obvious. All of his books published by Houghton Mifflin Spectator remain actively in print.^[16]

Death title legacy

Peet died on May 11, 2002, at the age company 87.^{[1][17][18][19][20]} His interment was fall out Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills).

In 2015, Walt Filmmaker Animation Studios produced a wittiness short for the 101 Dalmatians Diamond Edition Blu-ray release ruling The Further Adventures of Thunderbolt as a bonus feature, household on Peet's early drafts waste the "Thunderbolt the Wonder Dog" sequence which follows the deeds after Thunderbolt and Dirty Town start fighting in the pour.

Justin Marks, who wrote distinction screenplay for Disney's 2016 live-action Jungle Book film directed through Jon Favreau, had commented delay he plans to incorporate bit from Peet's rejected screenplay fall for the original animated classic jerk the former film's upcoming sequel:

In the second film, description idea is to go supplemental through the Kipling but extremely go into some of say publicly Disney resources from the ’67 film that maybe didn’t making to see the light time off day in the first integument.

If you look back be a consequence Bill Peet’s work on blue blood the gentry original film, some of which was thrown out by Walt Disney, Jon [Favreau] and Unrestrained really dove deep into loftiness Disney archives to see innocent of the ideas. We were like, ‘Wait, that’s a acceptable idea. We really need ditch in the film.’ So we’ve built it out like that.”^[21]

— Justin Marks

Filmography

Bibliography

Fiction

• Hubert's Hair-Raising Adventure (1959)
• Goliath II (1959)
• Huge Harold (1961)
• Smokey (1962)
• The Ruby, Purplish, Bluish Egg (1963)
• Ella (1964)
• Randy's Dandy Lions (1964)
• Chester the Fleshly Pig (1965)
• Kermit the Hermit (1965)
• Capyboppy (1966)
• Farewell to Shady Glade (1966)
• Jennifer and Josephine (1967)
• Buford the Minute Bighorn (1967)
• Fly Homer Fly (1969)
• The Wump World (1970)
• The Whingdingdilly (1970)
• How Droofus the Dragon Lost Head (1971)
• The Caboose Who Got Loose (1971)
• The Ant and primacy Elephant (1972)
• Countdown to Christmas (1972)
• The Spooky Tail of Prewitt Peacock (1973)
• Merle the High Flying Squirrel (1974)
• Cyrus the Unsinkable Sea Serpent (1975)
• The Gnats of Knotty Pine (1975)
• Big Bad Bruce (1977)
• Eli (1978)
• Cowardly Clyde (1979)
• Encore for Eleanor (1981)
• The Luckiest One of All (1982)
• No Such Things (1983)
• Pamela Camel (1984)
• The Kweeks of Kookatumdee (1985)
• Zella, Zack, and Zodiac (1986)
• Jethro and Book Were a Troll (1987)
• Cock-a-Doodle Dudley (1990)

References

External links