38 Facts About Ub Iwerks

Ubbe Ert Iwwerks, known as Ub Iwerks, was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician, known for his work with Walt Disney Animation Studios in general, and for having worked on the development of the design of the character of Mickey Mouse, among others.

Ub Iwerks met fellow artist Walt Disney while working at a Kansas City art studio in 1919.

Ub Iwerks joined Disney as chief animator on the Laugh-O-Gram shorts series beginning in 1922, but a studio bankruptcy would cause Disney to relocate to Los Angeles in 1923.

At the insistence of Disney, Ub Iwerks designed a number of new characters for the studio, including designs that would be used for Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar.

One of Ub Iwerks' most long-lasting contributions to animation was a refined version of a sketch drawn by Disney that would later go on to become Mickey Mouse.

Ub Iwerks went on to do much of the animation for the early Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony cartoons, including Steamboat Willie, The Skeleton Dance and The Haunted House, before a fallout with Disney led to Ub Iwerks' resignation from the studio in January 1930.

Ub Iwerks would go on to direct two Looney Tunes cartoon shorts for Leon Schlesinger Productions and several Color Rhapsody cartoons for Screen Gems before joining Disney again in 1940, after which he worked with special visual effects on productions such as 1946's Song of the South.

Ub Iwerks died of a heart attack in Burbank, California, in 1971 at age 70.

Ub Iwerks's likeness has been featured in his granddaughter Leslie Iwerks' 1999 documentary The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story as well as the 2014 feature film Walt Before Mickey, in which he is portrayed by Armando Gutierrez.

Ub Iwerks received three nominations at the Academy Awards, for which he won one.

Ub Iwerks posthumously received the Winsor McCay Award at the 1978 Annie Awards and the Hall of Fame award at the 2017 Visual Effects Society Awards.

Ub Iwerks was born in Kansas City, Missouri, with Dutch descent.

Ub Iwerks's father was born in the village of Uttum in East Frisia and emigrated to the United States in 1869 around the age of 14.

The elder Ub Iwerks, who worked as a barber, had fathered and abandoned several previous children and wives.

Disney and Ub Iwerks then found work as illustrators for the Kansas City Slide Newspaper Company.

Ub Iwerks was responsible for the distinctive style of the earliest Disney animated cartoons, and was responsible for designing Mickey Mouse.

In 1922, when Disney began his Laugh-O-Gram cartoon series, Ub Iwerks joined him as chief animator.

The studio went bankrupt and in 1923 Ub Iwerks followed Disney's move to Los Angeles to work on a new series of cartoons known as "the Alice Comedies" which had live-action mixed with animation.

Ub Iwerks promised to never again work with a character he did not own.

Disney asked Ub Iwerks, who stayed on, to start drawing up new character ideas.

Ub Iwerks tried sketches of frogs, dogs, and cats, but none of these appealed to Disney.

The first few Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony cartoons were animated almost entirely by Ub Iwerks, including Steamboat Willie, The Skeleton Dance and The Haunted House.

However, as Ub Iwerks began to draw more and more cartoons on a daily basis, he chafed under Disney's dictatorial rule.

Ub Iwerks felt he wasn't getting the credit he deserved for drawing all of Disney's successful cartoons.

Ub Iwerks accepted a contract with Disney's former distributor, Pat Powers to leave Disney and start an animation studio under his own name.

Financial backers led by Pat Powers suspected that Ub Iwerks was responsible for much of Disney's early success.

Ub Iwerks experimented with stop-motion animation in combination with the multiplane camera, and made a short called The Toy Parade, which was never released in public.

In 1937, Leon Schlesinger Productions contracted Ub Iwerks to produce four Looney Tunes shorts starring Porky Pig and Gabby Goat.

Ub Iwerks directed the first two shorts, while former Schlesinger animator Robert Clampett was promoted to director and helmed the other two shorts before he and his unit returned to the main Schlesinger lot.

Ub Iwerks then did contract work for Screen Gems where he was the director of several of the Color Rhapsody shorts before returning to work for Disney in 1940.

Ub Iwerks is credited as developing the processes for combining live-action and animation used in Song of the South, as well as the xerographic process adapted for cel animation, which was used in 101 Dalmatians.

Ub Iwerks worked at WED Enterprises, now Walt Disney Imagineering, helping to develop many Disney theme park attractions during the 1960s.

Ub Iwerks did special effects work outside the studio as well, including the birds for his Academy Award nominated achievement for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.

On 24 July 1929, Donald Warren Ub Iwerks was born to Mildred Sarah Henderson and Ubbe Ert Ub Iwerks.

On 14 January 1933, David Lee Ub Iwerks was born to Mildred Sarah Henderson and Ubbe Ert Ub Iwerks, he became a portrait photographer.

Ub Iwerks died in 1971 of a heart attack in Burbank, California, aged 70, and his ashes are interred in a niche in the Columbarium of Remembrance at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills Cemetery.

Ub Iwerks is the grandfather of documentary film producer Leslie Iwerks.

The documentary, created by Leslie Ub Iwerks, was released as part of The Walt Disney Treasures, Wave VII series.