Judge Whitaker

Judge Whitaker was an animator that went on to become a pioneering producer & director of educational and religious films at Brigham Young University, where he is credited with establishing a motion picture studio. In many ways his life would parallel that of Walt Disney, who would become his long-term employer. Judge moved with his family to Brigham City, Utah just before his fifth birthday and then to Denver, Colorado about the time of his tenth birthday. At South Denver High he would be student body president, one of the staff artists for the yearbook, and captain of the football team. Upon finishing high school Judge followed his family to Huntington Park, California and obtained a job utilizing his artistic talents in the display department at Western Auto Supply. A few months later he landed a position in the promotion department of Montgomery Wards retail stores in Chicago doing silk screen work and enrolled in an art class at the American Academy of Art. He returned to California after only a year and bought into a cleaning and pressing business hoping to earn enough money to marry his girlfriend Doris. The cleaning business barely broke even each month so he returned to the promotion department of Montgomery Wards where he spent most of his time cartooning and enrolled in night classes at The Chicago Art Institute. Although enjoying his work, he thought his $27.50 income was insufficient to contemplate marriage, so he accepted an offer with The St. Louis Times at $40.00 a week. He would later say his title of Art Director was "extravagant." In July, 1932 the paper was absorbed by the rival St. Louis Star and the Times staff were all released. In the midst of the Great Depression, Judge could only find freelance art work that did not quite pay all the bills. After reading an article about Walt Disney in Liberty magazine, Judge was inspired to want to work for him. After sending samples of his work he received a letter saying that the studio was not hiring at the moment, but they would be pleased to see him if he were ever in Los Angeles. With little to lose, Judge and Doris returned to Huntington Park, California and when Judge was given an interview by Ben Sharpsteen he was offered $16.00 a week as a trainee. After only a few weeks Judge and all the other new employees received pink slips. At first he took a job in Huntington Park helping to clean up after the earthquake of March, 1933. Then two weeks later hearing of a couple of jobs at the Charles Mintz Studio, he and his brother Scott Whitaker applied and were accepted. The Disney Studio would later call and offer $25.00 a week, but when Judge went to give notice, Charles Mintz offered him $27.50 to stay. Scott went to Disney, but Judge remained with Mintz for over a year until negotiating a $35.00 a week offer from Disney in 1936 as an assistant animator assigned to working on a new character named Donald Duck. Some of the more promising new animators were given a test project. Judge's was judged the best, and he was promoted to be a full-fledged animator with a nice raise in salary. Judge would mainly work as a character animator on Donald Duck shorts in his career with Disney, but he also worked upon several animated features beginning with The Three Caballeros (1944) working on the sequence with Pablo, a cold-blooded penguin and ending up with Peter Pan (1953) for which Judge helped animate The Lost Boys. In 1946 Judge suggested that Mormons in the film industry might be willing to donate their time to make a promotional church film. Two years of spare time work resulted in two completed films about the LDS welfare program, "Welfare in Action" and "The Lord's Way." Eric Larson directed the first, Judge the second, and Judge and Scott created the animation sequences. Judge took a year's leave of absence from Disney in early 1952 to join with his brothers, Berlin, Ferrin, and Scott to develop The Homestead Resort at the site of some natural hot springs in the Heber Valley near Park City, Utah. After Judge described the plans to build up the resort Walt replied, "All my life I have wanted to do something like that, and here I am stuck with this," waving to indicate the studio. "Take your year, then come back and your job will be waiting." Interestingly enough Walt Disney would form WED in December, 1952 to explore the design for Disneyland and Judge's plan may have had more than a passing interest to Walt. While working on the Homestead project, Judge was given the offer to head a newly created Department of Motion Picture production at Brigham Young University beginning in January, 1953. Judge sent a letter of resignation to Walt Disney and began to establish the film studio from scratch, buying some basic equipment in California and also visiting some studios and UCLA's Department of Cinematography to get some helpful advice. BYU reportedly joined UCLA that year as the second of only two university film production facilities that existed at the time. Although rough in the beginning, productions became more ambitious and polished through the years with Man's Search for Happiness (1964) shot in 35mm and released with 4-track stereophonic sound and "In The Holy Place" (1968) shot in 65mm. Both films were intended for special exhibition in Mormon visitor's centers (the first showing at the New York World's Fair). More than 150 films were produced during his 22 years as director and producer at the studio. Some were produced for the various auxiliaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, with other educational films produced for the university and commercially released for use in schools or industry. He is probably best known for Windows of Heaven (1963) and Johnny Lingo (1969). Wetzel received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from BYU in 1971, and retired in 1974. Like Walt Disney he started his career drawing and animating and ended it as a producer at a studio he had founded and nurtured.