Hugh Harman

Career

Hugh Harman began his animation career in Kansas City, Missouri in 1922, working with his older brother Fred Harman for Walt Disney on the early Laugh-O-Gram Cartoons. After that company went bankrupt, Harman and Rudolf Ising attempted to start a series based on the Arabian Nights but could not secure funding. Disney called them back when he began work for Winkler Pictures, producing the Alice Comedies and the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons. An effort to persuade Carl Laemmle to replace Mintz with Harman and Ising failed, and Walter Lantz was granted the series in early 1929.

Harman and Ising, with other former Oswald animators, created a pilot short, "Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid," featuring a character Harman had devised in 1928 as sound films gained popularity. This short earned them a contract with Warner Bros. Pictures, with Leon Schlesinger as manager. They began the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series in 1930 and 1931, with Harman directing the Looney Tune shorts, and produced them until 1933. After clashes with Schlesinger over budgets, they left Warner Bros. and took Bosko with them, having copyrighted him to avoid Disney's experience with Oswald. Harman-Ising Pictures also outsourced Cubby Bear cartoons for The Van Beuren Corporation.

Later life

After Harman-Ising Studios closed in 1960, Harman fell into abject poverty, living in a ramshackle house and unable to afford a car, though he often disguised his state by having breakfast at a Beverly Hills restaurant. He borrowed money from Ising, Friz Freleng, and Roy O. Disney in the 1970s, and received a monthly allowance from his brother Fred until Fred's death in January 1982. Friends, including animator Mark Kausler and historian Jim Korkis, paid the rent on a house in Chatsworth where Harman was moved. He died on November 25, 1982, after a long illness at home, survived by his son Michael. Harman was married twice, both ending in divorce; his second wife, a Greek woman named Kahtia, married him in 1980 but left soon after gaining her citizenship.