Born Ubb Eert Iwerks to Dutch-American parents in Kansas City, Missouri; Ub didn’t have the easiest of childhoods. After his father abandoned Ub and his mother (which he had apparently done to several other children and wives), Ub was forced to drop out of school to support himself and his mother. It was then at the age of 18 that Ub met Walt Disney, when the pair both worked at the same commercial art studio. After they were both laid off, the young friends decided to go into business together. The Iwerks-Disney Studio Commercial Artists only lasted a month when the duo both accepted jobs at the Kansas City Slide Company producing animated advertisements that were distributed around the country.
The two men were said to make the perfect team! Ub had the ability to churn out work at a phenomenally fast rate while Walt was the creative visionary and spokesman of the two.
Both Ub and Walt were ambitious and yearned for more. In 1921 when Walt created Laugh-O-Gram Films, Ub joined on as his chief animator. With the help of other up and coming animators, the studio create 12 cartoon shorts for Milton Feld, then pursued reimagined tellings of Aesop Fables. After two years the company went bankrupted and both Walt and Iwerks left for Hollywood.
The unstoppable team would not give up. After trying their hand in the unsuccessful animated live-action shorts the Alice Comedies, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was born. Unlike Alice, Oswald was extremely popular and the first true success for Walt. Unfortunately, Walt was pushed out by producer & distributer Charles Mintz. On top of that, Mintz stole almost all of Walt’s animators, but not Ub. Ub refused to work with Mintz.
Click here to read more about Oswald.
It was through the loss of Oswald that Mickey Mouse was born! Under the direction of Walt, Ub was the first to animate Mickey. In fact, he was the sole animator for Mickey’s very first cartoon, Plane Crazy. In a three-week period, Ub created up to 700 drawings a day! The average produced today is 20 a day.
Ub continued to be the driving force for the next few Mickey cartoons as well as the Silly Symphonies. Growing tired of the continued work without the deserved credit, Ub left the studio to branch out on his own. Backed by Disney’s former partner, Pat Powers, (the man who supplied the sound equipment for Steamboat Willie) The Iwerks Studio opened in 1930. Ub was able to gain a contract with MGM for distribution of his two new characters, Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper. While Ub had the talent and drive to create fantastic characters, he couldn’t find an overall narrative to tell. That was the part of his partnership from Walt that made them a fantastic team. Together they created gold. Ultimately, The Iwerks Studio never gained commercial success and lost financial support from backers. After exploring some freelancing work, Ub returned to Disney Studios in 1940.
Ub would spend the remainder of his career working for Disney, mainly in the special visual effects department. He was the creative genius behind the combination of live-action and animation as seen in Song of the South and Mary Poppins. He was also the driving force for the use of the xerographic process used for cel animation. Years later, under WED Enterprises, Ub helped to develop many of the Disneyland attractions developed in the 60s, including it’s a small world, The Hall of Presidents, and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. His technical wizardry earned him an Academy Award nomination for his special effects work in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. By the end of his career, Ub produced more than 300 animated movies!
In his personal life, Ub was married to Mildred Sarah Henderson from 1927 until his death in 1971 when he passed away from a heart attack. Together, the pair had two children, David Iwerks and Don Iwerks (a former Disney Executive). Ub’s granddaughter Leslie Iwerks is a writer, director, and producer who has done work with Pixar.
According to Don, his father and Walt never shared animosity from their falling out in the early 1930s. “…when my dad left Walt back in 1930, it was a shock to both Walt and Roy that my dad was leaving the company and going out to be a competitor. So one could surmise that Walt would never forgive him for that. But one of the wonderful things about Walt Disney is that he recognized talent, and he could put aside whatever he might’ve felt about my dad leaving the company, because he recognized what he had to offer. My dad never talked to me about any of that, but I saw the interaction between the, when I went to work there, and they talked just like a couple of old friends.” -Don Iwerks, A Son’s Compelling Tribute to his Fabled Father, Ub Iwerks 2019. Click here to read the article.
Eighteen years after his death, Ub was indicted as a Disney Legend for his work in animation and Imagineering. It is a shame he would not live to see the recognition he so deserved. One thing is for certain, Mickey Mouse and the Disney name would not be where it is today if it wasn’t for Ub’s loyalty, talent, and creativity.
