Richard Williams is a Canadian–British animator.
He is best known for serving as animation director on Disney/Amblin's Who Framed Roger
Rabbit and for his unfinished feature film The Thief and the Cobbler.
He was also a film title sequence designer and animator; his most famous works in this
field included the title sequences to What's New, Pussycat?
and title and linking sequences in The Charge of the Light Brigade.
He also animated the eponymous cartoon feline for two of the later Pink Panther films.
Richard Williams emigrated from Toronto to Ibiza in 1953 and then to London in 1955.
In 1958 he produced the work that boosted his career and won the 1958 BAFTA Award for
Animated Film, The Little Island.
In the Thames Television documentary "The Thief Who Never Gave Up", Williams credits
animator Bob Godfrey with giving him his start in the business, "Bob Godfrey helped me...I
worked in the basement and would do work in kind, and he would let me use the camera...[it
was] a barter system".
After his early work in the mid-1960s he directed the Academy Award-winning Christmas Carol,
the full-length feature Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure and the Emmy-winning television
film Ziggy's Gift.
He was director of animation on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, winning two more Oscars for
his work.
He has written an acclaimed animation how-to book, The Animator's Survival Kit, published
in 2002.
Following this, he completed a 9-minute short film titled Circus Drawings.
The silent film, with live accompaniment, premiered at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival
in Italy in September 2010.
The Thief and the Cobbler
Richard Williams' magnum opus, a painstakingly hand-animated epic inspired by the Arabian
Nights and with the production title The Thief and the Cobbler, was begun in 1964 and was
initially self-funded.
As a largely non-verbal feature meant for an adult audience, The Thief was dismissed
at first as unmarketable.
After over twenty years of work, Williams had completed only twenty minutes of the film,
and following the critical success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Williams sought and secured
a production deal with Warner Bros. in 1988.
However, the production went over deadline, and in 1992, with only 15 minutes left to
complete, The Completion Bond Company, who had insured Warners' financing of the film,
feared competition from the similarly themed Disney film Aladdin and seized the project
from Williams in Camden, London.
Completion Bond then had animator Fred Calvert supervise the animation process in Korea.
New scenes were also animated to include several musical interludes.
Calvert's version was released internationally in 1993 as The Princess and the Cobbler.
Miramax then acquired rights to the project and extensively rewrote and re-edited the
film to include continuous dialogue, as well as many cuts to lengthy sequences.
Miramax's product was released in 1995 under the title Arabian Knight.
For a long time, Williams preferred not to discuss the film in detail.
On December 10, 2013, the director's cut, a workprint of the film subtitled "A Moment
in Time", was screened in Los Angeles.
Williams participated in the event.
Personal life Williams is one of a number of successful
people in the entertainment industry to have come from Northern Secondary School in Toronto.
Currently, Williams lives in Bristol with his fourth wife, Imogen Sutton.
Williams also has four children from two of his three previous marriages, including animator
Alexander Williams and painter Holly Williams-Brock.
Filmography UK
The Little Island Love Me, Love Me, Love Me
A Lecture on Man The Apple
Diary of a Madman The Dermis Probe
The Sailor and the Devil The Ever-Changing Motor Car
What's New Pussycat?
The Liquidator A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
The Spy with a Cold Nose Casino Royale
Sebastian Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush
30 Is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia The Charge of the Light Brigade
Prudence and the Pill Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe
and Find True Happiness?
USA A Christmas Carol
The Return of the Pink Panther The Pink Panther Strikes Again
Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure Ziggy's Gift
Bugs Bunny's Wild World of Sports(1988) Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Tummy Trouble The Thief and the Cobbler
Italy Circus Drawings
Bibliography The Animator's Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods,
Principles and Formulas for Computer, Stop-motion, Games and Classical Animators, Faber and Faber,
2002 References
External links Richard Williams at the Internet Movie Database
Richard Williams at the British Film Institute's Screenonline