Letter From Lee Blair

Since I woke up extra early after going to bed extra late, and the brain is fried, I decided it would be a good day to perform a mindless task like getting the bric-a-brac cluttering the office into boxes and properly stored. In the course of doing that, I found this old letter from December, 1985:

LEE BLAIR* -- 3465 Crestline Way - Soquel CA.

Dear Steve:

There are several stories that come to mind regarding your search for after-dinner memories 'from way back when'. ...

One involves the great strength of Roy Williams** who used to be a friend of mine's assistant. Hardie Gramatky told me about him dumping over Ward Kimball's little Ford restored touring car, all on a bet. Another one about Roy was his car with the I-beam bumpers and bopping the guys out in Boyle Heights who cut in on him.

There was also a legendary guy at Harmon-Ising named Thurston Harper. He had been a soldier of fortune in Central America and other places and took no s*** from nobody. He was walking down Santa Monica Blvd. near the studio wearing his new Palm Beach suit. Some yoo yoos came around a corner and through a rain puddle and splashed dirty water all over Thurston. He was enraged. He took off down the middle of Santa Monica Blvd. and caught up with them at a red light at Highland Ave. He yanks out the driver and rolls him over and over in the water running down the street's gutter, then stuffed him back in the car. Wow!

Another involves Frank Thomas getting spit in the face in the Buenos Aires Zoo by a Llama. Webb Smith and I were standing there and Webb observed that Syphilis came from South America via Piaarro, started by llamas. Frank tore out on his way to the hotel to WASH UP.

There are others,

Lee Blair

* And if you're wondering who all these folks were, Lee Blair was a Disney animator, brother of Preston Blair and husband of Mary Blair. Roy Williams was a longtime Disney story artist and "Roy, the big Mooskeketeer" in the 1950s version of "The Mickey Mouse Club", and Frank Thomas was one of Walt Disney's "Nine Old Men" and a long-time supervising animator at Walt Disney Feature Animation.

Thurston Harper, remarkably enough, was an animator on Walt Disney's "Alice In Cartoonland" series during the 1920s, and also an animator on the Fleischers' "Gulliver's Travels".