Education
Born in 1914 in Morenci in Arizona, in 1917 his family moved to Los Angeles where Perez later attended high school.
Born in 1914 in Morenci in Arizona, in 1917 his family moved to Los Angeles where Perez later attended high school.
Later in his career he worked on Fritz the Cat and The Lord of the Rings. An athlete, he took part in football, baseball and track. Two years after graduating he was hired by Leon Schlesinger as a trainee animator.
"Manny" Perez worked on over 300 cartoons during the "Golden Age of American Animation", mainly for Warner Brothers
Cartoons, for whom he started animating in 1938, but also for Bill Melendez Productions, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and Hanna-Barbera. His first credited cartoon was Porky"s Bear Facts (1941).
Among the cartoons he animated were those featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweetie and Sylvester, Quick Draw McGraw, the Pink Panther, Charlie Brown, Wile East. Coyote and The Road Runner, Doctor Dolittle, The Cat in the Hat, Fritz the Cat and Plastic Manitoba, among many others After six days Schlesinger relented and allowed them to go back to work.
Despite having worked for Friz Freleng for about ten years, the two did not get along.
According to animator Greg Duffell in 1999:
In his later years Perez worked on Journey Back to Oz (1971). The animated version of The Lord of the Rings (1978), and The Plastic Manitoba Comedy/Adventure Show (1979). He died in January 1981 aged 66 at Van Nuys in California.
A member of the labor union The Screen Cartoonists Guild, Perez was one of the animators involved in the "Looney Tunes Lock Out" of 1941, when Leon Schlesinger, who had been producing cartoons for Warner Brothers Cartoons since the mid-1930s, locked out those animators who had joined the Guild, including Perez.