Background
Terry was born in San Mateo, California, in 1887. He was the youngest child of Joseph Terry, an auctioneer, and Minnie Perrin, a sculptor. Terry grew up in San Francisco.
animator cartoonist producer screenwriter
Terry was born in San Mateo, California, in 1887. He was the youngest child of Joseph Terry, an auctioneer, and Minnie Perrin, a sculptor. Terry grew up in San Francisco.
He studied art at the city's polytechnic high school.
He went to work as a reporter/cartoonist/photographer for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1904 and reportedly took the first published photographs of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. For the next ten years, Terry held positions at a variety of newspapers and magazines, ending up at the New York Press.
Maintaining his interest in art, he briefly drew a comic strip titled "Alonzo" for the Hearst syndicate. In 1914, he attended a dinner given by New York columnist, cartoonist, and animator Windsor McCay at which McCay screened his cartoon, "Gertie the Dinosaur, " for his guests. Impressed by the fluidly moving "Gertie, " which is still one of the best known of all American animated cartoons, Terry decided to create his own animated films.
In 1915, he completed his first cartoon, "Little Herman, " modeled on a popular magician, Herman the Great. According to Terry's own recollection, he tried to sell the film to veteran showman Lewis J. Selznick. Selznick offered Terry less than the cost of the raw film stock the artist had used to create it, snidely suggesting that the stock had been more valuable before Terry had drawn on it. Producer Edwin Thannhauser finally bought the cartoon. While Terry attempted to interest other producers in financing his cartoons, he was approached by Margaret Bray, wife of animator John Randolph Bray. Bray's company held patents relating to cel animation, the process of drawing cartoon movement on transparent celluloid sheets placed on top of stationary background pictures. Terry had used cel animation for "Little Herman"--indeed, he is credited by many film historians with perfecting the process--and had therefore infringed on Bray's patents. The Brays suggested that Terry either purchase a license to continue use of their process or go to work for them. Choosing the latter option he worked for Bray Studios for a little over a year.
While working for Bray, Terry introduced a character who would remain in his cartoon repertoire for decades, the sometimes wise and sometimes foolish Farmer Al Falfa. In a typical release, "Farmer Al Falfa Sees New York, " the country farmer goes to the city and is conned by a series of chiselers. In the end, however, he and his faithful dog turn the tables on the crooks.
Terry also learned about corporate structure at Bray Studios. Bray, whom historian Donald Crafton has dubbed "the Henry Ford of Animation, " applied scientific management principles in his company, transforming animation from a time-consuming art form into a streamlined business characterized by efficient division of labor. Terry would later use these principles at his own studio.
In the 1920's, years after Terry had left Bray, the two still disagreed over the rights to the cel-animation process. Bray instituted a lengthy lawsuit which he dropped only after Terry agreed to purchase a license to use the process. In 1917, Terry was inducted into the armed forces. He spent World War I working with the surgeon general's office, making animated films about surgical techniques. After the war, he worked for the Thomas Edison Studio for the last year of its operations. Few of his cartoons received wide distribution at this time.
In 1921, Terry formed Fables Pictures with producer/distributor Amadee Van Beuren, who obtained funding for the venture from the Keith-Albee theatrical chain. Terry hired eighteen animators to help him put out "Aesop's Film Fables, " a successful series of cartoons he would continue to produce for the rest of his career. The cartoons were only loosely based on the tales of Aesop. Farmer Al Falfa remained a supporting character in most of them. According to historian Harvey Deneroff, the fables' morals "usually had nothing to do with the story – e. g. , 'Aesop said 2, 600 years ago that "Marriage is an institution, but who wants to live in an institution, " ' or 'All wild flowers fade quickly except the blooming idiot. ' "
Shortly after producing his first sound-synchronized "Film Fable, " he ended his association with Van Beuren and created a company called "Audiocinema" with fellow animator Frank Moser. The new company's sound cartoons were called "Terrytoons. " In 1932, the company moved from New York City to New Rochelle, N. Y. In 1936, Terry bought Moser out and renamed the company "Terrytoons" after his short films. These cartoons, distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox, emerged steadily from the New Rochelle factory for decades. Terry initially resisted concentrating on regular cartoon heroes (Al Falfa was a mere character actor) like the popular Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny. In the late 1930's, however, after moving Terrytoons into color, Terry began to experiment with new star characters. His first and biggest success came in 1942, when he introduced the character Mighty Mouse (originally called Super Mouse) in a cartoon titled "The Mouse of Tomorrow. " His second-most-successful characters, the wisecracking magpies Heckle and Jeckle, debuted in 1946. By the early 1950's, these toonsters and others kept a staff of eighty-five animators busy at the New Rochelle studio.
In 1952, in conjunction with the release of Terry's one thousandth cartoon, the Museum of Modern Art screened a retrospective of the animator's work. In his comments on the program, the museum's film curator Richard Griffith paid tribute to Terry's unparalleled productivity: "[Terry's] is a formidable record matched by no other animator, nor indeed by any other eminent film craftsman, with the exception of the indestructible Cecil B. DeMille. . Although his continuous output for 37 years can only be called mass-production, it has, thanks largely to its satiric qualities, maintained an almost equally continuous level of fresh invention. "
In 1955, Terry sold his studio and his stock of some 1, 100 animated shorts to CBS. He continued to draw and to tell stories until his death in New York City in 1971.
In the mid-1920's Terry married Irma Heinlich; the couple had one daughter. In 1929, he formed another new partnership.
