Richard Williams is a three-time Academy Award-winning animator best known for the feature films Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Thief and the Cobbler, which was never completed. He is the author of The Animator's Survival Kit, a book considered the definitive text on how to animate, as well as the 16-DVD instructional course, The Animator's Survival Kit- Animated.
Full name: Richard Edmund Williams
Born: Toronto, Ontario, Canada 19 March 1933; emigrated to the United Kingdom, 1955; son of Kenneth D. C. and Kathleen (Bell) Williams.
Death: August 16, 2019 (aged 86) Bristol, England, United Kingdom
Career: Worked for Disney and United Productions of America (UPA) in early 1950s; 1955—moved to England: first animated film, The Little Island, 1958; his own studio produced animated films, commercials, and special effects and titles for live-action films; 1992—forced to close studio during production of The Thief and the Cobbler.
Awards: Academy Award, for A Christmas Carol, 1971; Special Achievement Award and Visual Effects Academy Award, and two British Academy Awards, for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 1988.
Death[]
Williams was one of a number of successful people in the entertainment industry to come from Northern Secondary School in Toronto. Toward the end of his life, he lived in Bristol with his fourth wife, Imogen Sutton. He had four children from two of his three previous marriages, including animator Alexander Williams and painter Holly Williams-Brock.
He died on August 16, 2019, at his home in Bristol, England.[8]
Films as Animator[]
- 1958
- The Little Island; The Story of the Motorcar Engine
- 1961
- A Lecture on Man
- 1962
- Love Me, Love Me, Love Me
- 1964
- Circus Drawings (completed 2010)
- 1965
- Diary of a Madman (not completed); The Dermis Probe; What's New Pussycat? (Donner) (animated sequences)
- 1966
- Pubs and Beaches; The Liquidator (Cardiff) (animated sequences); The Spy with a Cold Nose (Petrie) (animated sequences); A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Lester) (animated sequences)
- 1967
- Casino Royale (Huston and others) (animated sequences); I Vor Pittfalks, the Universal Confidence Man (not completed); The Sailor and the Devil
- 1968
- Prudence and the Pill (Cook) (animated sequences); The Charge of the Light Brigade (Richardson) (animated sequences)
- 1969
- Don't Drink the Water (Morris) (animated sequences)
- 1970
- Every Home Should Have One (Dir. Jim Clark) (animated Sequences)
- 1971
- A Christmas Carol
- 1975
- The Return of the Pink Panther (title animation)
- 1977
- Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure
- 1982
- Ziggy's Gift
- 1988
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Zemeckis) (+ ro as voice of Droopy)
- 1960s - 1992
- The Thief and the Cobbler (unfinished)
- 2008
- The Animator's Survival Kit- Animated (16-DVD instructional set)
- 2010
- Circus Drawings (Based on a project from 1964 and earlier)