Richard James Lundy (August 14, 1907 – April 7, 1990) was an American
animator and film director who worked at several animation studios including
The Walt Disney Company,
MGM, and
Hanna-Barbera. Lundy was a pioneer of personality animation and is best remembered as one of the creators of
Donald Duck.[1] Throughout his career he worked as a primary animator on at least 60 films, both short and feature-length, and directed 51 shorts.
Lundy was born in
Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, to James and Minnie Lundy, their only child. Shortly after his birth the family moved to Detroit, where Lundy's father worked as an inspector for the
Burroughsadding machine Company.
When Lundy was ten years old, his parents separated and he and his mother went to live in
Port Huron north of Detroit. They later moved back to the city where Lundy's mother worked as a waitress. Lundy moved to Los Angeles in the late 1920s.
In 1943, Lundy departed the Disney studios and worked for
Walter Lantz Productions. He started as an animator and again became a director. He directed shorts featuring
Andy Panda,
Woody Woodpecker, and the Swing Symphonies. Lundy was responsible for shifting the studios direction to a style more in vain to works made by Disney and MGM, a stark contrast when compared to the works of the studios previous director,
James Culhane. Lundy worked for Wolff Productions after the Lantz studio temporarily closed in 1949. The Lantz studio would reopen in 1950 and remain in business until 1972, but Lundy never worked at Lantz again. While at Wolff, Lundy worked on television commercials. In 1950, he worked for
MGM on
Barney Bear shorts and the
Droopy film Caballero Droopy.
Lundy was not the first to draw or even animate Donald Duck. The character was created by Swiss-born designer Albert Hurter and animated by
Art Babbitt and
Dick Huemer for the short film The Wise Little Hen (1934).[4] This was Donald's first appearance, although the story offered little opportunity for character development. This would come in Donald's second appearance, Orphan's Benefit (also 1934), in which Lundy was the sole animator of Donald. According to common animation practice, the audio and voices of the film were recorded first and were then played for the animators to reference. In listening to voice actor
Clarence Nash portray the Duck in Orphan's Benefit, Lundy said "[I] decided that [Donald] was an ego-show-off. If anything crossed him, he got mad and blew his top."[5]
Personal life
Lundy was married three times. First marriage with Anne Lundy resulted in two biological children, after the divorce he moved to Toluca Lake California. In 1932 he married Juanita Sheridan who also worked at the Disney studio. This marriage was short and ended in divorce in 1934.
By 1939, Lundy was remarried to Mabel Lundy. Together they had one daughter Llewellyn, resulting in three biological Lundy children. [6][7]
Filmography
Films
Disney (and other films) period
In this period, most of the films in which Lundy worked belong to Disney
Love and the Bachelor Party/Love and the Latin Lover/Love and the Old-Fashioned Father/Love and the Test of Manhood (segment "Love and the Old-Fashioned Father")