Harold "Hal" Ambro was an American animator and film director. He was notable for his work at Walt Disney Studios.
Ambro was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, and came to Los Angeles to study art in 1932, braking into animation in 1934 as an animator at Marty Monk Productions before eventually finding work at Charles Mintz Studios.
When he started at Disney, Ambro was hired as an assistant for features, like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi before becoming a full-time animator. Andreas Deja noted that, "Even though he never reached the status of supervising animator there, his animation can often be found in sequences that were [led] by animators, such as Ollie Johnston (the opening section of Johnny Appleseed) and Milt Kahl (Ambro animated almost half of the footage of The Fairy Godmother in Cinderella)." He left in 1966 because, as he told John Canemaker, "there is only so much room at the top of the ladder at Disney."
He then went on to animate, among others, for Chuck Jones (Gay Purree, Mowgli's Brothers, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Horton Hears a Who!, A Very Merry Cricket, The White Seal) and Richard Williams (A Christmas Carol, Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure). Ambro noted he "liked the stuff that Chuck was doing," he said, "because it was a cross between Disney animation and Saturday morning shows. He tried to do as good as job as you could, make it look like full animation. And like a lot of the other commercial operators, he was interested in how few cels he could get by with, which is par for the course." Other animated projects he worked on included The Alvin Show, Journey Back to Oz, The Cat in the Hat (1971), Off to See the Wizard, and Spider-Man.
Ambro then ended up at Hanna-Barbera animating on features, such as Charlotte's Web, Heidi's Song, and Rock Odyssey before teaching animation at CalArts.
Disney Filmography[]
| Year | Film | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1937 | Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs | assistant animator - uncredited |
| 1940 | Pinocchio | assistant animator - uncredited |
| 1940 | Fantasia | assistant animator - segment "The Pastoral Symphony", uncredited |
| 1942 | Bambi | assistant animator - uncredited |
| 1944 | Contrary Condor | animator - uncredited |
| 1946 | Make Mine Music | animator |
| 1946 | Squatter's Rights | animator - uncredited |
| 1946 | Song of the South | animator |
| 1947 | Fun and Fancy Free | animator - uncredited: "Bongo" "Mickey and the Beanstalk" |
| 1948 | Melody Time | character animator "The Legend of Johnny Appleseed" - animator |
| 1948 | So Dear to My Heart | animator - uncredited |
| 1949 | The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad | "The Wind in the Willows" - character animator "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" - animator |
| 1950 | Cinderella | character animator |
| 1951 | Alice in Wonderland | character animator |
| 1951 | How to Catch a Cold | animator - uncredited |
| 1953 | Peter Pan | character animator |
| 1953 | Melody | animator |
| 1955 | Lady and the Tramp | character animator |
| 1959-1967 | The Magical World of Disney | animator |
| 1959 | Sleeping Beauty | character animator |
| 1961 | One Hundred and One Dalmatians | character animator |
| 1963 | The Sword in the Stone | character animator |
| 1964 | Mary Poppins | animator |
| 1967 | The Jungle Book | character animator - uncredited |
| 1970 | The Aristocats | animator - uncredited |
| 1971 | Bedknobs and Broomsticks | animator - uncredited |
| 1973 | Robin Hood | animator - uncredited |
| 1977 | The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh | animator Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree - animator |
| 1985-1989 | Adventures of the Gummi Bears | animator |
| 1985 | The Wuzzles | animator - uncredited |
Gallery[]
Character Gallery[]
