GOOD TIMES!
Bob... painter, background artist and teller of amazing tales!
This weekend I met up with a dear friend… Bob Abrams. Bob was a respected background artist at Disney and Warner Brothers in the ‘good old days’. He worked on “Cinderella” and tells tales of 'Termite Terrace' as well as of the movie stars that filmed within a stone's throw of it. We first met when we both taught at the now defunct Henry Cogswell College in Everett, WA. Bob had covered 'Animation', 'Storyboarding', 'History of Animation' and 'Life Drawing' in his time there. He was especially fabulous when teaching the history of animation, as he was pretty much there when all the great stuff was done... at least when the great stuff in Hollywood was done!
I keep meaning to film Bob telling me his
first-hand stories from the 'golden era'… especially the one where he (as a novice at
Disney) bumped into Walt Disney and knocked him over in the hallway! Bob says that Walt was extremely charming about it all
and insisted that Bob shouldn't feel bad about it. I guess he must have left a
good impression on Walt at the time (in more senses of the word than one!) as Bob did manage to keep his job for some time to come after that!
Anyway, these days Bob is retired and living the
life of a serious painter up in the La Connor region of Washington State. He is an accomplished artist of note
actually and I am currently in the process of buying a second large painting from him… depicting spiraling seagulls over a raging sea. Perhaps it represents his feelings when knocking Walt over on that
unfortunate day? Who knows. All I do know is that it is an excellent painting
and I really wanted to buy it when I first saw it!
If you want another glimpse of Bob, check-out the photos on pages 99 thru 102 in the 'Filmmaking' section of my "Animation from Pencils to Pixels" book!
Heya! I was trying to get a hold of you and found a link to your blog through linked-in. Wow, it's awesome to see Bob is still doing well!! And from your blog it looks like you are too!
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Hi Elaine. Nice to hear from you... give my regards to all the 'Cogswellians' at Amaze when you can. I'll write to you via private email immediately.
Tony. :^{)}=-
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Hey Tony! Glad to see some updates with you! Also cool to hear Bob is still painting! Hope all keeps well for you
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Hi Dominic... great to hear from you too! Glad to hear also that you're doing well at Amaze. I must come over sometime and we can all have a big 'Cogswellian reunion' with all of you there!
Definitely keep in touch!
Tony. :^{)}=-
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