Franklin Rosborough "Frank" Thomas (September 5, 1912 – September 8, 2004) is best known as one of Disney's Nine Old Men. He is known for the emotional focus of his characters and his influence on character animation at the Walt Disney Studios. Once described by Chuck Jones as "the Laurence Olivier of animation".
Frank Thomas joined the studio in 1934, and soon became an assistant to Fred Moore, one of Disney's star animators. His first important scene was in Mickey's Elephant, where Pluto tries to make head or tail of a disappearing ball, and then animated the powerful finale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs where the dwarfs mourn Snow White in her glass coffin. Frank became a rising star at the studio, and animated another fine piece of personality animation, Mickey Mouse's encounter with a grizzly bear in The Pointer.
He then animated the not-yet-alive Pinocchio during the "Little Wooden Head" song sequence, and then drew him alive for "I've Got No Strings". After that, Walt assigned Frank to be a supervising animator on Bambi, where his best-known scene is Bambi and Thumper's misadventure while skating on a frozen lake. When World War II broke out, Frank briefly enrolled in the Air Force and joined an animation unit producing films for the Army. He returned to Disney in 1946, and soon after, animated a scene in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow where Ichabod Crane nervously and slowly rides through the hollow.
During the first half of the 1950s, Frank animated some of Disney's most memorable villains, including Lady Tremaine in Cinderella, the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland and Captain Hook in Peter Pan. After that, he was assigned to Lady and the Tramp, where he most famously animated the iconic Spaghetti Kiss, and then helped work with the three good fairies in Sleeping Beauty with his lifelong friend and fellow animator Ollie Johnston.
In the 1960s, Frank worked on such scenes as Roger reviving a newborn puppy in 101 Dalmatians and the Wizards' duel in The Sword in the Stone. One of his most famous and emotional scenes would occur in The Jungle Book (1967), where Baloo has to bring himself to tell Mowgli that he has to go back to the man-village. In the 1970s, he animated the geese and dogs in The Aristocats, Robin Hood disguised as a stork, and a lot of scenes of Bernard and Bianca in The Rescuers, which he considered his best film without Walt Disney. He retired in January 1978 during production of The Fox and the Hound.
Frank co-authored four books with Ollie Johnston: The Illusion of Life, Too Funny for Words, The Disney Villain and Bambi: The Story and the Film. He and Oliver Johnston would also have voice cameos in two of Brad Bird's films, The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. Frank died of natural causes in 2004.
Tropes Associated with Frank Thomas include:
- Creator Thumbprint: More subtle, but characters that Thomas animated would often perform a nose wrinkle as a sign of affection.
- The Golden Age of Animation: Started working at Disney during this period, all the way into the 1970s before retiring in 1978. He still continued mentoring animators in subsequent years.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: with Ollie Johnston, his fellow member of Disney's Nine Old Men. The two were best friends who often worked together on scenes, co-wrote books together, and spent time with each other outside of work. Their relationship was such that there was even a documentary released about them titled Frank And Ollie.
- Limited Animation: Was very capable of animating subtle sequences of emotion where the characters moved relatively little. Examples include the dwarves mourning in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and the Spaghetti Kiss from Lady and the Tramp.
- Red Baron: "The Laurence Olivier Of Animation", given by none other than Chuck Jones. Thomas was known for the intense emotional focus of the characters he animated, wanting to create believable characters who appeared to think and act of their own volition rather than simply drawings. In essence, Jones considered him one of the greatest actors in the medium of animation.
- Technician Versus Performer:
- With Milt Kahl, as they were often paired together to focus on specific characters. Milt would focus on the design, draftsmanship, and technical performance of the character, while Frank would focus on the emotions and the internal motivations of the character. Notably, Frank often struggled with draftsmanship which came more easily to Kahl. On the flipside, Frank's performances were often more sincere.
- With Ollie Johnston. Compared to Ollie, Frank was often more analytical and reflective in terms of how to understand a character. Whereas Ollie was even more emotional, focusing on "animating feelings" over drawings.
- The Twelve Principles of Animation: Trope Namer. As one of the co-authors of The Illusion of Life, he helped codify the principles into coherent and consistent ideas. To this day, most animators refer to these principles.
