Earlier this week I shared with you some of my photos taken from the balcony during the 2013 Annie Awards held at Royce Hall on the campus of UCLA in Los Angeles. What made the evening a little more special is that it happened to be the 40th anniversary of the Annies.
Never to miss an opportunity to be a support to an industry that has supported her for most of her 95 years, the First Lady of Animation June Foray was in attendance. June is legendary for her many vocal roles in film and television. You know her as Rocky from Rocky & Bullwinkle, Witch Hazel from Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck cartoons, she was the meowing cat Lucifer in Disney’s Cinderella, Cindy-Lou Who from the Grinch cartoon, the creepy Talky Tina from The Twilight Zone, and Granny from Tweety & Sylvester cartoons among many, many others. She is one of a handful of voice actors to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
June Foray is an ASIFA-Hollywood founding member. She and a few other folks founded the organization because they felt that there wasn’t much support for animation here in Los Angeles. In 1972, she thought there should be awards for the industry, and an idea was born that carries on to this day.
Below is a short film that was shown during the recent awards ceremony. Filmed in a documentary style, the short shows June and others (including Margaret Kerry, the live action model for the animated Tinkerbell in Disney’s Peter Pan) recounting the early days of ASIFA-Hollywood and the founding of the Annie Awards. My good friend Brian Joseph Ochab directed the piece. If you follow my blog, you might recognize Brian’s name from when he and I were trying to get a short Tim Burton tribute film off the ground. This piece was also produced by our friend and ASIFA-Hollywood board member David Derks, with an original music score by Peter Deneff.
Enjoy, and please check out ASIFA-Hollywood’s website when you have a moment!
Annie Awards: The First Forty Years Montage from ASIFA Hollywood on Vimeo.