Pink Panther Designer Dies

Legendary Warner Bros. layout artist, Hawley Pratt, who worked predominantly under the direction of Friz Freleng, passed away March 4 at the age of 87. He was raised in New York City and ironically graduated from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. In the 1930s, Pratt became an artist at Walt Disney Studios but soon found himself at Warners where he worked on all of Freleng's Oscar-winning cartoons including TWEETY PIE, SPEEDY GONZALEZ and BIRDS ANONYMOUS, and was nominated for an Oscar as director of the 1966 DePatie-Freleng short, THE PINK BLUEPRINT. For the greater part of Friz Freleng's prolific career as a director, Pratt was his right-hand man providing not only the background layouts but also the character poses for all his cartoons. In addition, Pratt illustrated many Little Golden Books and Big Golden Books, and was an animation director on THE INCREDIBLE MR. LIMPET along with Robert McKimson. Pratt followed Friz to DePatie-Freleng Enterprises (DFE) and is credited with designing the Pink Panther. While at DFE, Pratt directed numerous Pink Panther cartoons, the first few Roland and Ratfink films, the TV series THE SUPER SIX and many specials including THE CAT IN THE HAT and THE LORAX. Hawley Pratt retired from animation in the 1970s.