Leo Salkin is one of those artists whose career seemed to match every twist and turn of the animation industry’s history.
Born in Montréal on February 1, 1913, he joined the Walter Lantz studio in 1932, where one of his first assignments was to work as an animator on the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit series. On June 10, 1937, he moved to Disney and, after a brief stint in in-betweening, layout and animation (on the Pluto shorts), soon became a story artist. In September 1941, Salkin left Disney to join Screen Gems where he stayed for about two years. He then moved to MGM working in Tax Avery’s unit and was drafted in the Navy in 1943. He returned to the story department at the Studio in May 1949, tackling such shorts as How to Catch a Fish (1951), Cold Turkey (1951), Pluto’s Party (1952) and was instrumental in developing the marvelous Pigs is Pigs (1954) directed by Jack Kinney.
After leaving Disney in 1953, Salkin worked for UPA, where he tackled the Mr. Magoo’s cartoons. Leo Salkin shared an uncanny likeness with the Magoo character. After becoming a writer on The Alvin Show in the ‘60s, he returned to animation in the mid-70s for the Mel Brooks-written movie The 2,000-Year-Old Man, which he also directed. […]
