The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1967, Qupperneq 71

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
69
genius that lay in him. There was an
inner restlessness of spirit, sometimes
turbulent and explosive, that led him
to wander, in search of adventure,
from place to place in Western Can-
ada, without a fixed objective. His
activities were of short duration and
varied nature, a bank clerk in Saskat-
chewan, a fisherman on Lake Win-
nipeg, a coalminer in Alberta and a
lumberjack in British Columbia. Final-
ly, he returned to Winnipeg and set-
tled down as a commercial artist with
Bridgden’s. In his employment with
them he was a perfectionist.
It was not until 1934 that his career
as an artist, in the true sense of the
term, began. He left Winnipeg for
Hollywood in the hope of working
for Walt Disney and, on the strength
of samples of his drawings of animals,
which he had brought with him, he
was employed by Walt Disney Produc-
tions the day after he called on them.
This was the beginning of an exciting
period for him. While he was with the
Walt Disney organization he worked
on the drawing of the animal pictures
in “Snow White and The Seven
Dwarfs”.
During this period he created many
animal characters. His most famous
creation was “Bugs Bunny”. Walt
Disney gave him a personal letter certi-
fying that “While Charles Thorson
was in his employ he created the char-
acter of “Bugs Bunny”.
Charles stayed with the Walt Disney
organization for only a few years.
Other companies in the “animated
cartoon” field were anxious to secure
his services and he became associated
with many of them, Harman Isings,
Metro Goldwyn Meyer, Warner Bro-
thers, Leo Schlesinger, Max Fleischer
and others. During this period he
created more than 100 animated
An original drawing of Bugs Bunny by
Charles Thorson
cartoon characters, including Elmer
the Elephant, Tilly the Tiger, Hi-
awatha and Sniffles the Mouse. His
travels in the United States took him
to Miami, New York and back to Los
Angeles.
Charles had a special gift, known
to the art in which he lived as the “gift
of animation”. This was rare. He
could make his animal characters
seem to be alive. He could make them
laugh or cry, be sad or gay, angry or
humble. He seemed to be able to por-
tray in his animals all the moods of
which a human was capable. In this
great gift of animation Charles Thor-
son had no superior.