Les Clark was born into a large family in 1907 in Ogden, Utah. He was the eldest of twelve children born to his parents, James Clark and Lute Wadsworth. His father, James, was a carpenter by trade. The family moved to Salt Lake City around 1910. According to the 1920 US Federal Census, they lived in Twin Falls, Idaho. In 1930, Les’s family lived in Los Angeles, California. So, it seems his family moved around a lot, probably so that his father could find enough well-paying carpentry work to support his wife and all those children.
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Once in Los Angeles, Les was old enough to attend high school at Venice High School. While a student there, he worked at an ice cream parlor for a summer job, which happened to be close to Walt Disney Studios. Because of the shop’s proximity to the studios, Walt Disney and his brother Roy were frequent patrons of the ice cream shop. Walt even once took notice of the lettering young Les did on the shop’s menus, and he complimented Les on them.
Tinker Bell (postcard) Sprinkles magic Stardust over the wonderful world of Fantasy, Disneyland, to make it “the happiest place on earth.”
That was enough encouragement for Les to think that maybe he could get Walt to hire him. Walt Disney Studios was starting to gain some genuine prestige in the entertainment industry around that time, and a job at the studios would undoubtedly pay well and put Les in touch with people who could help him build a career. It took a while, but Les eventually gathered the courage to ask Walt for a job.
Walt was known for being a man who was always looking for new talent, and so he was receptive to Les’s request. Walt told Les to bring some of his drawings to the studio so Walt could see what they looked like. Les did this, and Walt personally evaluated his work. Walt told Les he had a good line and offered him a job on the spot, inviting him to work that Monday. Les did just that.
That Monday happened to be the Monday after Les graduated from high school. The position at the Walt Disney Company, which Les began in 1927, was supposed to be a temporary one. Les became the first of Walt’s famous “Nine Old Men” and spent his entire career with the company.
While working for the Walt Disney Company, Les married a woman named Miriam, and they had two children together—a son named Richard and a daughter named Miriam.
When Les began working for the Walt Disney Company, he started as a camera operator and did ink and paint on animations. Eventually, he was moved to work under the direct tutelage of Walt’s good friend and early business partner, Ub Iwerks. Les was present during the development of the Micky Mouse character. While Micky Mouse was being developed, Les was promoted to inbetweener, a low-level animator who drew scenes between the scenes drawn by more senior animators. As an inbetweener, Les did a scene for Micky’s debut animated short, Steamboat Willie.
Unlike many animators at Disney and other animation studios, Les learned the animation trade from the ground up. He was happy to take a low-level job at the company when he first started there and worked his way up with a cheerful attitude, which was one of his hallmarks.
After working on this project, Les was promoted to a full animator position, and his first project in this position was a Silly Symphony called The Skeleton Dance. After Ub Iwerks left the company, Les scored the lead animator position on the Micky Mouse character. Knowing he had a good opportunity here, Les took art classes while working for Disney to hone his craft. As his drawings improved, he was given the important task of animating the Seven Dwarfs in the Snow White movie. This was Les’s springboard to Disney’s success, and he went on to animate iconic Disney characters like Pinocchio, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Tinker Bell.
Les had a particular talent for timing animation to musical scores and conveying genuine emotion through animation.
Les continued with the Walt Disney Company for nearly half a century, retiring in 1975. When he retired, Les was the “longest continuously employed member of Walt Disney Productions.” Because Walt’s job offer changed Les’s life for the better in so many ways, he gave Walt unwavering loyalty and a determination to improve his work. He wanted to produce the highest quality animation possible for Walt and the Walt Disney Company.
Les even outshone his early mentor at the company, Ub Iwerks. Ub had been known for producing a large number of animation cells quickly. Les could do that, too, but he did it with far superior draftsmanship and versatility than Ub. Still, because Ub was his early mentor, there were always traces of Ub’s influence in Les’s work. An example of this influence that Disney scholars often point out is Les’s animation of the little train to Baia in the 1945 animated film The Three Caballeros. Ub’s animation style was magical and cartoony, and the train is a perfect example of how Les adopted this style as his own. Not only was the train a showcase of Ub’s influence on Les’s animation skills, but it also showcased Les’s talent for synching animation to musical scores, as the train chugs along on crayon rails to a cheerful samba as it goes through a set of stylized jungle landscapes.
Les went from working in an ice cream shop as a high school kid to being one of Walt Disney’s most valuable animators and the first of the famous “Nine Old Men,” who are the animators of legend at the company. He made a great career for himself with the company and left his mark on film animation for probably centuries to come. In Santa Barbara, California, Les Clark passed away on September 12, 1979.