The animator Richard Williams, who won an Oscar for the short film “A Christmas Carol” (1971) and the live-action feature film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (1988), has died at the age of 86. Born in Toronto, Canada, Williams moved to the United Kingdom in the 1950s. He died on August 16 in Bristol.
Awarded with three Oscar trophies, one BAFTA and a Primetime Emmy (“Ziggy’s Gift”, 1982), he is also part of a trophy obtained at the Annecy International Animation Festival in 1962 for “A Lecture on Man”.
Williams was the animation director of the live-action feature film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” (Starring Robert Zemeckis), for which he created the characters Roger and Jessica Rabbit. This film, with Bob Hoskins in distribution, brought him two trophies from the American Academy and one from the British one.
He created animations for “The Return Of The Pink Panther” and “The Pink Panther Strikes Again” and worked for “Casino Royale”.
As stated in a 2008 interview, he has always wanted to come to Disney, being very impressed with “Snow White.” He was received for two days as a child. He was advised to learn to draw better and, he acknowledged, lost interest in animation until he was 23 years old.
His first film, the short film “The Little Island”, was released in 1958 and was awarded the BAFTA. Williams received the first Oscar for an animated adaptation of the novel “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens.
He is also the author of the volume “The Animator’s Survival Kit” and created until the day of his death.
