Monday 24 November 2008

Ray Harryhausen

Last weekend I got to meet a true hero of mine - the legendary Ray Harryhausen!!! He was signing copies of his latest book, the superb A Century of Model Animation, at Forbidden Planet (aka Forbidding Prices) in London on Saturday 22 November, accompanied by his co-author Tony Dalton, and his dear lady wife, Diana.

Being the type of event it was, a book-signing with the attendant Very Long Queue, I didn't really get to say much to him, other than to bumble on briefly about how great I think his work is. Ray's hearing isn't so great these days (he is 88 after all!), but he was completely charming, as one would imagine he is from his appearances of late in various DVD extras and the like.

I also handed him a letter from my internet mucker Richard Svensson, aka the Lone Animator, a mega-talented animator-cum-sculptor-cum-prop-maker-cum-damn near anything practical connected with the filmic and theatrical arts. Check out his blog on the right...

Here's Ray thinking, "Who is this idiot with the beard?":


Co-author Tony blows the ink dry while I gurn at the camera:

3 comments:

Richard Svensson said...

Looks like a great meeting (of geniuses). When I get famous and goes off to sign books, I'm going to have my own personal ink-blow-dryer as well.

McTodd said...

Not sure about 'geniuses' - unless you mean 1.1 geniuses!

jriggity said...

Ha!

I had that same moment over here in Los angeles. I went by a bookstore for the signing...

told him he was a bing part of my becomeing an animator...but instead of the beard he was like.

whos this guy with the stripes???

ha...

jriggity