Susan’s Almanac Project for January 29, 2019

It’s the birthday of author, illustrator, and screenwriter Bill Peet (1915-2002), who spent 27 years working for Walt Disney (with whom he famously clashed again and again) and also wrote over 30 children’s books, which sold in the millions.

Peet was born in Grandview, Indiana. His father was drafted into the army in WWI, and though he survived the war just fine (he never got shipped overseas), he also never returned to the family, so Peet and his two brothers never knew their father. Peet’s mother started teaching in Indianapolis during the war, and Peet, his brothers, and a grandmother moved there to be with her. Peet recalls having a happy childhood there and spending a great deal of his time drawing. (Fun fact: Peet’s original last name was Peed, which he changed to Peet. I can’t imagine how he got through school as “Peed.” Children are kind of horrible.)

Peet studied at the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis and started working for Walt Disney at 22; he was evidently an anomaly in the “yes man” culture that Disney generally cultivated. Somehow, in spite of his differences with Disney, he did very well, advancing from the grunt work of making fill-in drawings to creating important figures for such movies as Fantasia (1940) and Dumbo (1941). He also worked on Cinderella (1950), was responsible for the demons in Sleeping Beauty (1959), and wrote the entire screenplay for 101 Dalmatians (1961).

According to Peet’s obituary in the New York Times, he modeled the character of Merlin the Magician from Sword in the Stone (1963) after Walt Disney: “bad-tempered and argumentative, but a true wizard nonetheless.”

Among his long list of children’s books are Chester the Worldly Pig (1965), The Wump World (1970), The Whingdingdilly (1970), Cyrus the Unsinkable Sea Serpent (1975), and like that. In 1989, Peet published Bill Peet: An Autobiography, which he illustrated in the manner of a picture book, and it looks so interesting and appealing that I’ve just ordered a copy. (See it here.)

Peet was married to the same woman for 60 years; they had a son and several grandchildren at the time of his death at age 87.

Have a splendid, non-Disneyfied Tuesday and stay scrupulously honest to the data.