<Begin Segment 21>

KL: So this is tape four, we're continuing an interview on December 5, 2013, with Willie Ito.

WI: Pretty soon it will be the 7th.

KL: [Laughs] Yeah, we won't keep you here that long, I don't think. We left off talking about a mentor of yours, Iwao Takamoto, who's important in Manzanar's past, too, and he was your mentor at Disney and the person who interviewed you, and he came back into your life later, too. So I wonder if you could kind of share with us what happened in between and how he came back into your life.

WI: Well, when Lady and the Tramp was completed, the next feature, which was Sleeping Beauty, was still a few months away. So the other studio I always yearned to work at, well, visit and then work at was Warner Brothers, classic Bugs Bunny, Coyote, Roadrunner, that whole group of characters. So I called that Friday afternoon, when I was called in and told to take a few months off and then come back for Sleeping Beauty. So I went back to my office and I called Warner Brothers and says, "Well, I'm available." Because at that time they told me, "We don't train at Warner's. But once you get trained, we'll hire you." So when I called the production manager at Warner's, I said, "Well, I just got trained at Disney Studio," so he says, "Well, then come on down."

So that following Monday I started at what we refer to as "Termite Terrace." The reason for that is the studio was a real true, truly a dump. Whereas Disney was the state of the art studio with refrigerated air conditioning and just... whereas Termite Terrace, no air conditioning, we had to work in the summer smog of Hollywood with the windows open. But the opportunity really presented itself, because no sooner did I start there that I suddenly found myself promoted in Chuck Jones' unit. And so my career, I felt, was really now rolling along. Disney did call and said, "Well, we're ready for Sleeping Beauty, so ready to come back?" I said, no, I told them how much I was now making and what was my category and all that, and he says, "Well, this is the major leagues, and Warner Brothers is, you're playing in the minors." So I figured, okay, well, I turned down Disney, I'll probably never end up being invited back there. So my next six years of my career at Warner Brothers was really moving along.

Now, I have to also mention, since this is an oral history of camp experience, the Japanese American experience and all that, Iwao was one of those guys hired right practically out of Manzanar. 1945, the war had just barely ended. But, see, in our industry, it's rather unique. They look at your portfolio and they see what you can do. Then they look up and look at your face, and says, "Oh, what is your name?" Willie Ito, Iwao Takamoto. It's all based on what you do, and you get hired. So Iwao was so unique in the fact that being hired right after Manzanar, and in nine years achieved such a reputation as one of the top artists, that he in essence laid the groundwork for all of us that later followed. So nine years later, I started at Disney. There was a few other Japanese American kids that were working there at that time when I came in. But Iwao's reputation was so unique, everybody, all the top animators to work with them. And Iwao was a very unique artist in the fact that he could do female characters, cute characters, with such precision. Like the character in Sleeping Beauty... oh, gosh. Anyway, I can't remember cartoon names anymore.

KL: Is it the villain?

WI: Not... Ariel was the...

KL: Aurora?

WI: Aurora.

KL: The lead? Yeah, yeah.

WI: He was assigned to key all of the Auroras to make her just consistent and perfect. And same with the Lady character, all of the closeup of Lady with the eyelashes and the cuteness like that picture, yeah, Iwao was assigned to key it. But overall he was so extremely talented. And so by the time I got there, there was no need for me to feel any sort of intimidation. And so I just kind of came on and became like one of the boys.

KL: Was he conscious of that, do you think? Did he ever talk with you about...

WI: Yes, he was.

KL: What did he say about that?

[Interruption]

WI: Like lunchtimes I used to go and say, "Hey, you want to go get some sushi? We could drive down to Little Tokyo." And he would look at me and say, "I don't eat that stuff." He sort of rejected anything Japanese. Like I would say, "Hey, August is Nisei Week and they have the Obon and all that in Little Tokyo. You gonna go?" And it's like I dared to talk to him about those things. So I thought, "How strange." And all of his studio pals were all Caucasian guys, and he was dating Jane, and drove a Jaguar. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, this is not the stereotype Japanese American, you know, is my first thought. He was a man about town. But I certainly, certainly can't deny his talent. I mean, he was just so good. So when...

KL: Did you guys ever have a conversation about Manzanar and Topaz? Did he ever speak about that?

WI: Not to any extent. He didn't want to talk about it. He was of that... because he was in school and got all that, so disturbed. So no, we never sat and talked about camp experience. I would say, "Hey, I went to Topaz," and he never reciprocated by saying, "Yeah, I went to Manzanar." [Laughs] Yeah, so it was kind of strange. So when I think back now, and how he used to avoid these things, I said, yeah, okay, he was sort of rejecting his ethnicity to a certain extent. But at the same time, his mother used to do these elaborate oshogatsu New Year's spread and he would go and partake and all that. But then trying to get him to go to lunch in a Japanese restaurant at that time... so years later, I hadn't really seen him for six years. I went to Warner's and then (Snowball or Bob Clampett's) and all that. And then finally when I started at Hanna-Barbera Studio, there was Iwao working there. I said, "Oh my gosh, what are you doing here?" He finally had it up to here with the Disney politics. I guess as talented as he was, he was pigeonholed. Because he was so good that they were reluctant to let him out of that corner to develop himself. And so he finally says, no, it's time to move out. Which was the best thing he ever did, because he became a lifetime member of the Hanna-Barbera company, and then when Hanna-Barbera sold to Warner Brothers, he was the only one retained to go with the company. Even Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera was no longer... well, technically they did retire. But of the whole crew, he was, Iwao was the only one that ended up having an office at the Warner Brother Studios. And unfortunately he passed away on a Sunday when he was supposed to be at work the following Monday.

KL: Yeah, it was really sudden, wasn't it?

WI: Yeah. He was having problems, and the last time I saw him in person, we were doing an oral interview with the animation thing, you know. And he was slow and his breathing was like a hard thing. But we got through the interview, and in front of the mike his sense of humor flourished and we bantered back and forth and whatever. And that was really about the last time. But during the days at Hanna-Barbera we became very close. And we socialized, and he married one of the secretaries at Hanna-Barbera, and we were all close, birthday parties with the kids and all that.

KL: You mentioned something when we were talking earlier, too, about a book of sketches from Manzanar. Would you just tell... I know it's gone, but would you just tell us what that was?

WI: Oh, yeah. Well, it was unfortunate that... well, what happened is as the war was coming to the end and schooling being interrupted and all, he was sort of beside himself as far as, "Now, what am I gonna do? Am I gonna go back to school, what's in the future for me?" A couple guys that were in the art game before the war, says, "Hey, you draw so well. Why don't you get a couple of ten-cent store sketchbooks and if you have time, just sketching anything. People walking, just sketch it, a dog over here." And so he filled up two sketchbooks full of beautiful sketches and drawings. And now remember, Iwao was untrained. He never actually went to art school, he was like a natural. And whether he took some art in school or whatever that I'm not aware of, he never had formal training. So he took those two sketchbooks and made an appointment with the Disney Studio, and boom, he was hired. And, of course, the fact that... well, he felt that he wasn't trained, and when he was just coming out of camp and being Japanese American, "What chance do I have of getting hired at a prestigious studio like Disney Studio?" So that was quite something. So when we worked together at Hanna-Barbera, he excelled because he was given free hand to do what he could do. He wasn't held down by animators that needed a beautiful Aurora or a beautiful Lady or whatever. So boy, the sky's the limit. So he started with the Jetsons and did more Flintstones and all. And I think, of the lineup of all of the Hanna-Barbera characters, he was probably responsible for at least seventy-five percent of designing all the characters. Now, his biggest credit is designing Scooby Doo, and that's where the correction is. He designed Scooby Doo; he didn't create Scooby Doo, but he designed him. So initially he was involved with the creation of the graphics of Scooby Doo, but not the concept and the story and whatever. So when he passed away, of course, publicity says, "Iwao Takamoto, the creator of Scooby Doo," which brought up a number of resentment from some of the writers that actually worked on developing the character. So poor Iwao, after passing on, was still being criticized for taking credit where credit is not due, but that's not right. So that was kind of unfortunate. Iwao has a son named Michael who also worked in the business with us. And his first wife, Jane, was also an animator. That's how they met at Disney Studio. Then Barbara, his widow today, was a secretary and they started dating at the studio and got married.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.