Walter Lantz

Walter Lantz. , Walter Benjamin Lantz, animator, producer and director, was born in New Rochelle, New York to Italian immigrant parents. His father, whose surname Lanzas was anglicized to Lantz by an immigration official, was a soap maker by trade, but became a butcher when he moved to New Rochelle., Walter was always interested in art, having completed a mail order drawing class at age 12. While working as an auto mechanic, he got his first break when a wealthy customer named Fred Kafka liked his drawings posted on the garage's bulletin board and financed his studies at the Art Students League. Kafka also helped him get a job as a copy boy at the New York American., In 1927, Walter Lance moved to Hollywood, where he worked as an independent producer and founded Walter Lantz Productions. His most famous cartoon characters were Andy Panda, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Woody Woodpecker. He is also credited with producing the first Technicolor cartoon., It was during Lantz's honeymoon with actress Grace Strafford in 1940 at a lakeside cottage that Lantz found the inspiration for his most famous creation. When the couple heard a woodpecker drilling holes in the shingles on the roof, Grace suggested adapting the bird as a cartoon character. She eventually went on to become the voice of the pesky bird after her husband had initially turned her down because Woody was a male character. Undeterred, Grace secretly made an audition tape and submitted it anonymously. Not knowing whose voice was being heard, Lantz picked Grace's voice to do Woody and his raucous laugh., Walter Lantz received an Academy Award for lifetime achievement for his contributions to the art of animation. His Woody Woodpecker artifacts are part of the collection of the Smithsonian Institution and in 1986, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.