Disney, Screen Gems, MGM with Tex Avery, Grantray-Lawrence with Ray Patterson, DePatie-Freleng. Grant Simmons has that on his list of animation accomplishments.
We profiled him in this post. In leafing through clippings, but there’s one we missed. We’ll give you some other tidbits, too.
A family history at Ancestry.com says Grant Alden Simmons was born Nov. 11, 1912 at Pima, Arizona and his early schooling was in Miami, Ariz. It claims the family moved to Los Angeles after he graduated from high school—at the age of 12! (June 25, 1924), though a 1943 article transcribed in the previous post says he attended high school in Glendale, which seems more likely. He attended Brigham Young University for two years, studying art.
But the history is missing something. Besides his third birthday party reported in the Graham (Ariz.) Guardian (games and refreshments). This story is from the weekly Lordsburg Liberal of Lordsburg, New Mexico, May 31, 1935.
JACK KERR TELLS OF THE MICKEY MOUSE CARTOON
Our own Jack Kerr, voted the most popular boy on the campus of Modesto College in California, published an article in the Modesto Collegian on the production of the famous Mickey Mouse cartoons, the production being so good that it was broadcast over the radio. Jack's very interesting article follows:
In the minds of the audiences who have seen a Mickey Mouse cartoon, the prevalent reaction is one of mere entertainment. But in the minds of the 250 skilled artists who make these cartoons is the thought of one and a half months of long, hard work, according to Grant Simmons, MJC student.
Simmons has attended several noted art schools, including the Otis Art in Institute at Los Angeles, and was at one time employed by Walt Disney in the making of one of his famous cartoons.
The studio is run on the same scale a large motion picture corporation, according to Simmons. If the artist is good enough he is given a three months' course in apprenticeship, which is held on the studio lot. The artist who has possibilities is given a contract for six months as an "in betweener," and from here he works up the ladder.
The animater plays the most important part in the making of a cartoon. He draws every first and fifth movement. The drawings are then sent to the "thirders," who draw every third movement, and from there the drawings continue on to the "in betweeners," who draw all other motions between the first, third, and fifth drawings.
From these rough sketches a trial picture is made, and if satisfactory the drawings are then sent to the inking department, where "inkers" trace all drawings on celluloid. These celluloid copies are then shown on a stationary background.
All of the songs heard in the cartoons are composed at the Disney studio.
It takes approximately 150,000 drawings to make a single Mickey Mouse moving picture cartoon.
Simmons, who is taking art under Jean Williams at MJC, is practising animation and plans to have a try-out with Disney this summer.
After working on Fantasia (1941), Simmons accepted an offer from Dave Fleischer to work for Screen Gems. The Film Daily’s review on Nov. 9, 1942 of The Dumbconscious Mind, a Phantasy cartoon, says “Reel is amusing and skillfully animated by Grant Simmons.”
The Hollywood correspondent on the Deseret News of Salt Lake City wrote on June 2, 1943:
Grant Simmons, animator at Columbia Cartoon Studios, gets screen credit on Columbia’s current cartoon “Something About A Soldier.” It’s good fun. Grant is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Wallace Simmons, formerly of Salt Lake. When I asked Grant if his three-year-old daughter Arlene is also an artist, he said: “She’d better not be.”
Simmons stayed at Screen Gems until it closed in November 1946 (cartoons with his name were put on hold then released over the next two years). His first credit at MGM in the Tex Avery unit was Li’l Tinker. Model sheets for the cartoon are dated June 5, 1946 and the short was released May 15, 1948.
During the ‘40s, he was also active in the Screen Cartoonists, Local 852 as a trustee.
MGM disbanded the Avery unit in March 1953. Variety of June 16, 1953 reported that two weeks earlier, Simmons and Ray Patterson, who bounced between the Hanna-Barbera unit and Avery’s crew, had been hired by Walter Lantz. While two Lantz cartoons bear their names, they did not stay long. On July 21, 1954, Variety said the two, and New York producer Robert Lawrence, had set up Grantray Animation, Inc., later Grantray-Lawrence. The intention was to make commercials, industrial films and theatricals. For a time, their creative supervisor was Gene Hazleton.
Simmons and Patterson’s company did some sub-contract work for television, notably on the debut episode of The Jetsons (1962). It also turned in footage for the features Gay Purree (1962) and Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear (1964). Then came a big break. Broadcasting revealed in its Jan. 24, 1966 issue:
Comics on TV ● Producers Robert Lawrence and Stephen Krantz have acquired TV animation rights from Marvel Comics group for two of its comic characters, Spider-Man and Captain America. Production of a half-hour pilot film is now under way at Grantray-Lawrence Productions, Hollywood.
A million-dollar contract between Krantz Films and RKO General Broadcasting to put the Captain America half hours—three segments including Sub-Mariner, The Incredible Hulk, The Mighty Thor and Iron Man—on five of its stations was announced in the Mar. 26, 1966 issue of Back Stage. By April 11, sales reached two million for 18 cities, according to Broadcasting magazine. Simmons was one of the directors.
As for Spider-Man, ABC decided by January 19, 1967 to add the half hour to its fall Saturday morning schedule (source, The Hollywood Reporter). There were expanded studios and staff. There were more TV commercials. It was all too much. Grantray-Lawrence closed in (I understand) 1968. Spidey was now animated in New York, though Simmons got a credit.
Simmons’ name appears in Daily Variety a final time on June 1, 1970. He was hired, along with familiar names Art Davis, Sid Marcus, Hawley Pratt, Gerry Chiniquy and Lars Calonius, to direct the Doctor Dolittle cartoon series for DePatie-Freleng.
Cancer claimed Simmons died on October 31, 1970 at age 57.
