About the Book:

RARE BOOK, only a very limited number of copies are still available.

Profiles of the nine original Disney animators explore their relationship with Walt Disney, their artistic accomplishments and failures, their personalities, and their contributions to character animation and moviemaking.

When Walt Disney dubbed his core group of animators "The Nine Old Men", he wasn't referring to their advanced years — their median age was actually forty. He was instead making a joking reference to Franklin Roosevelt's description of his Supreme Court as "nine old men, all too aged to recognize a new idea." Nothing could have been further from the truth, in this case, as the nine unique personalities portrayed in John Canemaker's comprehensive history explored, expanded, and influenced character animation and moviemaking over the course of fifty years, consistently raising the bar by which the art form continues to be judged.

Through the span of their careers, these nine highly skilled men, with widely differing artistic gifts, viewpoints, personalities, and degrees of ambition and competitiveness, exhibited a loyalty to one another and their employer unparalleled in most professions. Walt Disney's Nine Old Men explores their individual relationships with Walt Disney and with each other, their artistic breakthroughs and failures, the rivalries, and studio politics. This candid narrative of their lives and contributions to a very special form of cinema illustrates why the work of Walt Disney's Nine Old Men will continue to be a significant, essential source for study and inspiration to animation and art lover for years to come.

What people say:

"Lavishly produced, this oversized book is filled with rare and important reproductions of animation cells and candid pictures of the men and their associates, all printed on heavily coated paper to bring out the full luster and detail. [This] book will be of considerable interest to anyone concerned with the creative forces that shaped some of the most recognizable characters and sequences from Walt Disney Productions' most famous animated films. Highly recommended for any library." — Library Journal

"John Canemaker is, surely, the single-most prominent writer of animation books in the world ... Several books already in his oeuvre would be capstones to any career, but this one, Walt Disney's Nine Old Men, might stand as his greatest." — Animation-Books.com

"John Canemaker's Walt Disney's Nine Old Men is an engaging and inspiring read from start to finish, and it is one of the few animation books that deserves a spot on the bookshelf of all animation artists, historians and cartoon aficionados." — AnimationBlast.com

About the Author:

John Canemaker is an Academy Award and Emmy Award-winning American animation filmmaker, and a tenured professor and director of the film animation program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He has written numerous books on animation, including Walt Disney's Nine Old Men, and contributed more than one hundred related essays, reviews, and articles to periodicals. He lives in New York City and Bridgehampton.