Who were Disney's Nine Old Men? I run down the careers of the influential animators. This installment honours Wolfgang "Woolie" Reitherman (June 26, 1909 - May 22, 1985).

Walt Disney's Nine Old Men were his best animators, the core of the most successful North American animation factory of the 20th Century.

Wolfgang "Woolie" Reitherman (June 26, 1909 - May 22, 1985) was the "action man," animating such classic showdowns as the dinosaur battle in Fantasia, the Monstro chase scene in Pinocchio, and the clash between Prince Phillip and Maleficient the Dragon in Sleeping Beauty.

Reitherman's talents extended beyond his animation. For ten years, from 1967's The Jungle Book to 1977's The Rescuers, he directed every Disney animated film.

Woolie Reitherman: Animator and director

Reitherman was born on June 26, 1909 in Munich. His parents emigrated to the United States while he was a baby, and he was raised in Sierra Madre, California. Obsessed with airplanes, the adolescent Reitherman decided to become an aircraft engineer.

After attending Pasadena Junior College, he got a job with Douglas Aircraft, but his romance with airplanes soon withered. In 1931, he enrolled at the Chouinard Institute in order to become an artist. One of his instructors, who also taught classes at Disney Studios, told him about cinematic animation. In 1933, Reitherman joined Disney.

"It was a romance from the start," he said about his new career choice. "The minute you know you can make a drawing move, the static drawing loses its appeal: movement is life. Animation represents the greatest breakthrough in 20th Century art."

Reitherman's first credited work was on 1934's "The Wise Little Hen." Like everyone else at Disney, he pulled long hours working on the studio's first animated feature film, 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but his extensive contributions impressed Walt, and ensured him a lifelong gig at Disney.

Ward Kimball on Woolie Reitherman

Despite his secure position at the studio, Reitherman didn't think he was as good an animator as the other Nine Old Men.

"He didn't think he was a good artist, even though he was," Ward Kimball told Animation Guild business rep Steve Hulett in 1978. "Basically I think underneath, he compared himself to Fred (Moore) or some of the others, which made him work harder."

Part of this inferiority complex manifested itself in animating action scenes. Disney generally handed those sequences to his less-experienced animators, leaving the acting scenes for his more capable minions. But Reitherman cheerfully worked on action sequences, and was very good at it.

"He was always stuck with the chase stuff because most people hated to do that," continued Kimball, "but Woolie got a big kick out of doing fast, action, wild-out stuff and he did it well."

Perhaps due to his experience with action scenes, Reitherman excelled at animating physical comedy, which landed him on the classic Goofy "How to . . ." shorts.

"I know people who saw "How to Ride a Horse" in the theatre, when it was released by itself, ten or fifteen times," observed Kimball. "They would go just to see that and they would laugh and laugh 'til they cried."

World War II hero and Disney director

In 1943, Reitherman enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. He became an ace fighter pilot, serving in Africa, India, China, and the South Pacific, and earning the Flying Cross medal. After World War II ended, he returned to Disney, and continued animating.

He moved to assistant director on 1961's 101 Dalmations, finally directing his first feature with 1963's The Sword in the Stone. This experience helped him take over when Walt died in the middle of producing The Jungle Book.

"He was older than the rest of us, so I guess that's why he was put in as the director," said Kimball. However, Frank Thomas remembers Reitherman as a "very strong leader" who held Disney Animation together after Walt's untimely death in 1966.

Reitherman directed every animated feature film until 1977's The Rescuers and, according to Allmovie's Hal Erickson, "it was during his regime that . . . Disney . . . began concentrating more on purely comic animation and celebrity voice-overs."

In Reitherman's defence, Walt's death meant that Disney's board of directors started interfering with the animation division, cutting costs and trying to make the movies more "commercial."

Tired after 50 years at the Mouse House, and realizing that current management was ruining Disney's golden reputation for animation, Wolfgang Reitherman retired in 1981. He died in a car crash on May 22, 1985.

(Thanks to IMDb, Steve Hulett's TAG blog, Allmovie.com, and the Disney website for research material for this article)

Next Up: Frank Thomas, the greatest actor of the 20th Century?