WOLFGANG REITHERMAN
Wolfgang Reitherman (Munich, June 26, 1909), also known and sometimes credited as Woolie Reitherman, is a German-born American animator who was one of Disney's Nine Old Men. Reitherman began working for Disney in 1934, along with future Disney legends Ward Kimball and Milt Kahl. The three worked together on a number of classic Disney shorts, including "The Band Concert", "Music Land", and "Elmer Elephant" and in all, Reitherman worked on various Disney feature films produced from 1937, including "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (Slave in the Magic Mirror) to "The Fox and the Hound" (co-producer).
He did the climactic dinosaur fight in Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring in "Fantasia", the Headless Horseman chase in 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' section in "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad", the Crocodile in "Peter Pan", and Maleficent as a dragon in "Sleeping Beauty" (the former three he animated and the latter he directed). Beginning with 1961's "One Hundred and One Dalmatians", 'Woolie', as he was called by friends, served as Disney's chief animation director. One of Reitherman's productions, the 1968 short "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day", won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
He also served as a producer and sequence director, and starred as himself in the 1941 feature film "The Reluctant Dragon". Reitherman directed several Disney animated feature films including: "One Hundred and One Dalmatians" (1961), "The Sword in the Stone" (1963), "The Jungle Book" (1967), "The Aristocats" (1970), "Robin Hood" (1973).