John Kirkham Hubley (May 21, 1914 – February 21, 1977) was an American animated film director, art director, producer, and writer, known for his work with the United Productions of America (UPA) and his own independent studio, Storyboard, Inc. (later renamed Hubley Studio). A pioneer and innovator in the American animation industry, Hubley pushed for more visually and emotionally complex films than the productions at that time of Walt Disney Productions and Warner Bros. Cartoons. He and his second wife, Faith Hubley (née Chestman), worked side by side from 1953 onward, earning seven Academy Award nominations, of which they won three.https://awardsdatabase.oscars.org Academy Awards Database.
Hubley was born in Marinette, Wisconsin, in 1914 and developed an interest in art from a young age, as both his mother and maternal grandfather were professional painters.Hubley, John and Faith (1974). Animation: A Creative Challenge. Mid-America Film Center and the Kansas City Art Institute. After high school, he attended the ArtCenter College of Design, then in Los Angeles, to study painting. At age 22, after three years of classes, he landed a job at Walt Disney Productions."Screening Room with John and Faith Hubley". Screening Room. April, 1973. WGBH Boston. Film Although the studio recognized his talents and made him an animation director on Fantasia, Hubley felt restricted by the conservative animation style. Hubley left Disney in 1941 during the Disney animator's strike and joined the First Motion Pictures Unit, later following many of his fellow unit artists to the newly formed Industrial Poster Service (later renamed the United Productions of America). Hubley served many roles at UPA and directed several Academy Award-nominated animated shorts. Most famously, he directed The Ragtime Bear (1949), the debut of Mr. Magoo, a character he co-created.
In 1952, Hubley was forced to leave UPA after refusing to denounce communism, leading to his eventual investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee. He soon opened his own independent studio to capitalize on commercial work for the new market of television advertising,"The Red Scare Killed an Animator's Career, So He Took Over TV".Animation Obsessive. Published May 18, 2021. Retrieved January 5, 2023. directing the successful "I Want My Maypo!" spot. In 1954, he was commissioned by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to make an animated short film, the first short ever funded by an art museum.Haug, Sarah. "A Joyful, Animated Mid-Century Film from the Guggenheim's Archives". Guggenheim.org. Published January 8, 2015. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
Hubley, alongside his wife Faith, is often considered the most important figure in American independent animation and one of the most important in the history of animation. The couple's Moonbird (1959) became the first independent film to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short. They collaborated with jazz musicians including Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Carter, and Quincy Jones and often used unscripted, improvised dialogue, creating an entirely new way of expressing emotion and feeling through the medium of animation. Their work is considered important in the evolution of post-war modernism in film. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences claim the Hubleys' films "bucked the establishment and defined an era of independent animation production".Wall text, Inventing Worlds and Characters, Animation, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles, California
Early life and education
Hubley was born on May 21, 1914, at 1212 11th Street (now Shore Drive) in Marinette, Wisconsin.Directory of the Town of Marinette, Wisconsin, 1914. p. 181. His father, John Raymond Hubley, was a secretary at the John B Goodman Company,Directory of the Town of Marinette, Wisconsin, 1911. p. 179.Directory of the Town of Marinette, Wisconsin, 1916–1917. p. 177. a logging company, in Marinette, and his mother, Verena Kirkham Hubley, was a homemaker. Verena's maternal grandfather, Jacob Leisen, was one of the founders of the Leisen & Henes Brewing Company in Menominee, Michigan."The Leisen & Heines Brewing Company of Menominee, Michigan, USA". Taverntrove.com Accessed January 8, 2023.Sawyer, Alvah Littlefield. "A History of the Northern Peninsula of Michigan and its People". Vol. 3. The Lewis Publishing Company. 1911. Accessed through hometownchronicles.com article Jacob Leisen, retrieved January 8, 2023. The Leisen-Kirkham family were economically stable, allowing Verena's parents to send her to the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied painting from 1907 to 1909. Verena's father, Richard Archibald Kirkham, was also a painterRichard Kirkham Biography. askArt. Accessed January 8, 2023. and one of the earliest photographers in Menominee.Tinder, David. Directory of Early Michigan Photographers. University of Michigan. 2013. p. 1399.
Hubley was encouraged at a young age to become an artist by his mother and maternal grandfather. In a 1974 interview, he recalled, "I used to watch my grandfather when I was a little kid...It was always ordained that I would go to art school as soon as I got out of high school.".
In 1921, his father partnered with a cousin, Loren O. Robeck, to open Robeck & Hubley, a Ford dealership at 1919 Hall Avenue in Marinette.Directory of the Town of Marinette, Wisconsin, 1921. p. 14. The business was only modestly successfulEmich, Howard. "D.F. Poyer Introduces Automobile to Twin Cities". Menominee County Historian. Vol. 28, no. 1, Spring 2003. Accessed August 15, 2022. and closed in 1928, the same year the Hubleys left Marinette and moved to Iron Mountain, Michigan. Hubley attended Iron Mountain High School from 1929 to 1932.The Argonaut, 1929. p. 61.The Argonaut, 1930 p. 43.The Argonaut, 1931. p. 37.The Argonaut, 1932. p. 20. While a student, Hubley would partake in a wide array of extracurricular activities, including the debate,The Argonaut - 1932 p. 70. drama,The Argonaut - 1932. p. 44. a capella,The Argonaut, 1932. p. 62. basketball,The Argonaut, 1931. p. 86. Hi-Y (a male-only group associated with the YMCA),The Argonaut, 1931. p. 54. and mathematics clubs.The Argonaut, 1930. p. 69. Hubley also wrote for the school's newspaper, The Mountaineer, and from 1930 to 1932 provided the illustrations for the school's yearbook, The Argonaut. While in high school, Hubley worked as a bank cashier in Iron Mountain.The Argonaut, 1932. p. 20.
In the fall of 1933, Hubley enrolled at the ArtCenter College of Design in Los Angeles to study painting."A painting of a woman sitting in a chair by John Hubley (ADVT 1936)". ArtCenter Archives. Accessed January 8, 2023. Unable to support himself, he lived with his aunt, Kathleen Kirkham Woodruff, who had moved to Los Angeles for her film career. Her husband, Harry Woodruff, inspired the character Mr. Magoo.Rieder, Howard. "Memories of Mr. Magoo". Cinema Journal, vol 8, No. 2 (Spring, 1969). p. 17 Accessed through JSTOR, January 8, 2023 During his time in college, the newly formed Walt Disney Animation Studio was scouting local art schools for talent. Hubley's painting talents caught the studio's eye, and he was hired as a background and layout artist.
Career Working at Disney and the 1941 Animator's Strike: 1936–1941 Hubley started working at Walt Disney Productions on January 1, 1936. He started as an apprentice on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) producing background tracings and painting backgrounds and layouts for animators. He was quickly promoted to an art director for Pinocchio (1940).
On February 25, 1939, the architect Frank Lloyd Wright visited the studio with a copy of The Tale of the Czar Durandai (1934), a Russian animated film directed by Ivan Ivanov-Vano. Wright showed the film to Disney's staff, including Hubley, who was greatly inspired by the film's stylized visuals and animation.
Hubley was chosen as one of three directors (alongside Dick Kelsey and McLaren Stewart) to handle the "Rite of Spring" passage of Fantasia (1940). Specifically, Hubley directed the section covering the molten stage of Earth's creation to the cooling off into greenery. Hubley was upset by the film's inaccuracy, stating that "it was not scientifically accurate in terms of the demise of the reptiles. It was more likely they were frozen by the ice age. But Disney didn't want an ice age; he wanted a desert sequence". Hubley also painted several backgrounds for the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment. This same year, Hubley moved out of the Woodruffs' house to his own house at 3827 Ronda Vista Place in Los Angeles. Hubley lived here with fellow Disney Studios artist and actor John McLeish."Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940". Department of Commerce-Bureau of the Census. Sheet no. 11-A. Enumerated April 17, 1940. Accessed digitally August 13, 2022.
In the spring of 1941, employees at Disney Studios were unhappy with salary inequalities and the studio discouraging unionization.Friedman, Jake (2022). The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation's Golden Age. Chicago Review Press. Hubley and his wife Claudia both participated in the 1941 Disney animators' strike,Friedman, Jake. "The Strikers". thedisneyrevolt.com. Accessed January 8, 2023. with John taking dozens of photographs to document the event. Hubley was one of the better-paid employees of the studio, making $67.50 a week (equivalent to $1,367.04 in 2023), but decided to strike in support of unionization. The strike, organized by Hubley's friend Art Babbitt, strengthened Hubley's relationship with strikers like Bill Littlejohn, Herb Klynn, Stephen Bosustow, and Jules Engel, all of whom later worked with Hubley at UPA or Hubley Studios. On August 10, 1941, John and Claudia were two of the 256 employees fired by the studio when the strike ended.
Enlistment and beginning of UPA: 1942–1948 After being fired from Disney Studios, Hubley briefly worked at Columbia's Screen Gems under Frank Tashlin, and later Dave Fleischer. He initially worked as a writer and layout artist, but by the time Tashlin left the studio, Hubley was promoted to director alongside animator Paul Sommer, with the short Old Blackout Joe (1942) being his first time directing. Hubley disliked his work at Screen Gems and referred to Fleischer as "one of the world's intellectual lightweights," however, Fleischer's detachment from the employees allowed Hubley to gain creative freedom he had not found at the Disney Studio. Hubley co-directed seven cartoons for Screen Gems, with many noting how most of them relied much more on human characters and stylistic designs and backgrounds, elements that would remain relevant to Hubley's later work. Hubley and Sommer were also noted for directing The Rocky Road to Ruin (1943), a cartoon eerily similar to Chuck Jones' The Dover Boys at Pimento University (1942) which featured similar character designs and settings.