There's a lot of talk lately about the lack of diversity in Hollywood...
Well, you should have seen things back in the 50s.
Tinsel Town was pretty white, especially when it came to those working in animation.
Floyd Norman changed all that.
He was the first African American animator at Disney Studios.
His incredible life is the subject of a new documentary titled "Floyd Norman: An Animated Life."
Take Two's Alex Cohen recently had the chance to talk with Norman, who turned 81 earlier this summer.
On what it was like to walk into Disney Studios for the first time
It was wonderland. I was Alice arriving in Wonderland. Of course today [The Disney Studio] is a monster enterprise, but back then, it was sort of sleepy little Disney. Hardly anyone knew the studio was in Burbank, California because it had a very low profile. But it was a wonderful, once you walked into ... the studio. Art work and artists were everywhere. And for a kid like me newly arrived from Santa Barbara, coming into the Disney studios ... was the most magical place I've ever seen in my life.
On being called a "troublemaker" by his co-workers
As Roy Edward Disney said, most artists are trouble makers because we're not main stream. Artists are really counter culture. We are mavericks. We cause trouble wherever we go. Hopefully we bring entertainment and delight we bring smiles to children's faces and we make adults laugh, but we are who we are and we are misfits who create popular entertainment.
On drawing cartoons of his colleagues
What's so wonderful is I didn't really invent anything. I was carrying on a long standing Disney tradition. Back when I was a child, long before I got to Disney, the other artists were drawing cartoons about each other. It's what cartoonists do! We mock people. We mock ourselves. And so when I came to disney and I saw all of these funny cartoons on the wall and I saw these gags as the artists riffed on each other... i loved it! Lo and behold in the 1960's maybe it was just a sign of the times, we lost that sense of humor. And artists stopped drawing cartoons. I didn't want to see that long standing Disney tradition die. So I began drawing cartoons. That's really what motivated. So I started drawing cartoons about my friends my colleagues ... even Walt Disney himself! That was a very good thing because Walt Disney discovered me because of those gags.
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above.
Answers have ben edited for clarity.