Abe Levitow
Abraham Levitow (July 2, 1922 – May 8, 1975) was an American animator who worked at Warner Bros. Cartoons, UPA and MGM Animation/Visual Arts. He is best known for his work under Chuck Jones' direction.
Levitow began working as an in-betweener and assistant animator at Warner Bros. Cartoons in 1940 at the age of 17. He briefly left Warner Bros. when he was drafted during World War II working on training films. Levitow returned to the studio, working as an assistant animator for Ken Harris under the Chuck Jones unit, and he was later promoted to animator in 1950 and would receive his first animations credit in 1953 for the cartoon Wild Over You. He worked steadily for Jones over the remainder of the 1950s, and directed several cartoons for release in 1959, including the Pepé Le Pew cartoon "Really Scent". While working under Jones, he made characters' joints more angular than most other animators. Those characters with fur (Wile E. Coyote, for example) looked especially shaggy in Levitow's scenes.
Levitow joined UPA in 1958 to work on the Mr. Magoo feature 1001 Arabian Nights, staying behind even after the studio was sold to Henry G. Saperstein. In 1962, he directed the first feature-length animated television special, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. 1962 also saw the release of his theatrical feature Gay Purr-ee. By 1962, he was working with Jones at MGM as an animator and a director in the Tom and Jerry series. He co-directed the feature film The Phantom Tollbooth with Chuck Jones at MGM. In addition, he worked with UPA on more Mr. Magoo cartoons, including The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, and also collaborated with Chuck again on the program Curiosity Shop through Format Films. He animated on the Chuck Jones-produced A Christmas Carol, directed by Richard Williams at Williams' London studio in 1971.
In 1972, he and producer Dave Hanson founded Levitow/Hanson Films. The studio produced several animated pieces for Sesame Street, the most notable being Willie Wimple. His last completed project was B.C.: The First Thanksgiving, which aired in November of 1973.
At the time of his death, Levitow was in line to direct the animated feature film Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure. The project was taken over by Richard Williams when Levitow died from a bone tumor during pre-production at the age of 52.
[biography (excerpted) from Wikipedia]
Get Full Access Now.
Unlock the full potential of your streaming services with a subscription plan or a simple one-time payment for lifetime access.Monthly
$4.99
/ per month
Secure payment with Stripe
Stay month to month with all of the content and features. No long-term commitment. Cancel anytime.
Yearly
Most popular
$1.99
60% OFF
/ per month
Secure payment with Stripe
Keep full access to all of the content and features for a full year. Save big with annual billing.
Lifetime
Limited time offer
$79
$20 OFF
$99
Secure payment with Stripe
Pay once for full access to all of the content and features. No renewals, and it never expires.
- Full catalog accessFull-access to the discover catalog.
- Powerful filtersFilter discover catalog by multiple genres, origin, release year and runtime.
- Availability alertsCreate alerts to be notified when movies, TV shows, or specific seasons become available in any country.
- Access to more dataUnlimited lookup of available audio, subtitles and direct links to stream.
- Sort by your preferencesOrder by popularity, release year or ratings from IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.
- No ads. Ever!No banners, no popups, no distractions.
- Hide what you are not interested inHide movies and TV shows you've already watched, the ones with few ratings or specific genres.
Content data from
Streaming services data from
