William Hanna (July 14, 1910 – March 22, 2001) was a producer and animator. He created the Tom and Jerry short film series with Joseph Barbera.
Biography[]
After working odd jobs in the first months of the Great Depression, Hanna joined the Harman and Ising Animation Studio in 1930. By 1937, when MGM opened its cartoon department, he was given his own directing unit, steadily gained skill and prominence while working on cartoons such as The Captain and the Kids. He had previously directed To Spring at Harman-Ising. While working at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Hanna met Joseph Barbera, an ex-Terrytoons animator, though Barbera was assigned as a story man for the Friz Freleng unit. Eventually, Hanna was demoted to story man and Rudolf Ising took his unit. By the time Freleng left however, Hanna and Barbera were promoted to directors replacing Freleng from his unit and began a collaboration that was at first best known for producing Tom and Jerry. In 1957, they co-founded Hanna-Barbera, which became the most successful television animation studio in the business, creating and/or producing programs such as The Flintstones, The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, The Smurfs, and Yogi Bear. In 1967, Hanna-Barbera was sold to Taft Broadcasting for $12 million, but Hanna and Barbera remained heads of the company until 1991. At that time, the studio was sold to Turner Broadcasting System, which in turn was merged with Time Warner in 1996; Hanna and Barbera stayed on as advisors.
Tom and Jerry won seven Academy Awards, while Hanna and Barbera were nominated for two others and won eight Emmy Awards. Their cartoons have become cultural icons, and their cartoon characters have appeared in other media such as films, books, and toys. Hanna-Barbera's shows had a worldwide audience of over 300 million people in their 1960s heyday, and have been translated into more than 28 languages.
In March 22, 2001, Hanna died of throat cancer (two days before Barbera's birthday). Barbera continued his work until his own death in 2006.