Abe Levitow

Abraham Levitow July 2 1922 May 8 1975 was an American animator who worked at Warner Bros Cartoons UPA and MGM AnimationVisual Arts He is best known for his work under Chuck Jones direction Levitow began working as an inbetweener and assistant animator at Warner Bros Cartoons in 1940 at the age of 17 He briefly left Warner Bros when he was drafted during World War II working on training films Levitow returned to the studio working as an assistant animator for Ken Harris under the Chuck Jones unit and he was later promoted to animator in 1950 and would receive his first animations credit in 1953 for the cartoon Wild Over You He worked steadily for Jones over the remainder of the 1950s and directed several cartoons for release in 1959 including the Pepé Le Pew cartoon Really Scent While working under Jones he made characters joints more angular than most other animators Those characters with fur Wile E Coyote for example looked especially shaggy in Levitows scenes Levitow joined UPA in 1958 to work on the Mr Magoo feature 1001 Arabian Nights staying behind even after the studio was sold to Henry G Saperstein In 1962 he directed the first featurelength animated television special Mr Magoos Christmas Carol 1962 also saw the release of his theatrical feature Gay Purree By 1962 he was working with Jones at MGM as an animator and a director in the Tom and Jerry series He codirected the feature film The Phantom Tollbooth with Chuck Jones at MGM In addition he worked with UPA on more Mr Magoo cartoons including The Famous Adventures of Mr Magoo and also collaborated with Chuck again on the program Curiosity Shop through Format Films He animated on the Chuck Jonesproduced A Christmas Carol directed by Richard Williams at Williams London studio in 1971 In 1972 he and producer Dave Hanson founded LevitowHanson Films The studio produced several animated pieces for Sesame Street the most notable being Willie Wimple His last completed project was BC The First Thanksgiving which aired in November of 1973 At the time of his death Levitow was in line to direct the animated feature film Raggedy Ann Andy A Musical Adventure The project was taken over by Richard Williams when Levitow died from a bone tumor during preproduction at the age of 52 biography excerpted from Wikipedia