Frank Tashlin

Frank Tashlin (born Francis Fredrick von Taschlein) (February 19, 1913 – May 5, 1972) (also known as Tish Tash or Frank Tash) was an American animator, screenwriter, and film director.

Animator

Tashlin drifted from job to job after dropping out of high school in New Jersey at age 13. In 1930, he started working for Paul Terry as a cartoonist on the Aesop's Film Fables cartoon series, then worked briefly for Amadee J. Van Beuren, but he was just as much a drifter in his animation career as he had been as a teenager. Tashlin joined Leon Schlesinger's cartoon studio at Warner Bros. as an animator in 1932, where he was noted as a fast animator. He used his free time to start his own comic strip in 1934 called Van Boring, inspired by former boss Van Beuren, which ran for three years.^[1] He signed his comic strip "Tish Tash." Tashlin was fired from the studio when he refused to give Schlesinger a cut of his comic strip revenues. He joined the Ub Iwerks studio in 1934. He moved to Hal Roach's studio in 1935 as a writer. He returned to Schlesinger in 1936 as an animation director where his diverse interest and knowledge of the industry brought a new understanding of camerawork to the Warners directors.

In 1938, he worked for Disney in the story department. Afterward, he served as production manager at Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems animation studio in 1941. Tashlin rejoined the Warner directors of "Termite Terrace" in 1943. He stayed with the studio during World War II and worked on numerous wartime shorts, including the Private Snafu educational films.

Film director

Tashlin moved on from animation in 1946 to become a gag writer for the Marx Brothers, Lucille Ball, and others, and as a screenwriter for acts such as Bob Hope and Red Skelton. His live-action films still echo elements of his animation background; Tashlin peppers them with unlikely sight gags, breakneck pacing, and unexpected plot twists.

Beginning with the 1956 film The Girl Can't Help It, with its satirical look at early rock and roll, Tashlin had a streak of commercial successes with the Martin and Lewis film Hollywood or Bust in 1956, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? in 1957, and four of Jerry Lewis' early solo films (Rock-A-Bye Baby, The Geisha Boy, Cinderfella, and It's Only Money.) Many of these have attained cult status. Moreover, in the 1950s Tashlin came to the approving attention of the French film magazine, Cahiers du Cinéma, in reviews that the director dismissed as "all this philosophical double-talk." Also, Rock Hunter's broad, colorful satire of Madison Avenue advertising earned it a spot on the National Film Registry in 2000.

In the 1960s, Tashlin's films lost some of their spark, and his career ended in the latter part of that decade, along with that of most of the stars with whom he had worked. His final film was The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell starring Bob Hope and Phyllis Diller in 1968. He briefly returned at MGM in the 1960s to produce the animated film The Bear that Wasn't, based on his own book, directed by Chuck Jones.

Author

Tashlin wrote and illustrated three books, The Bear That Wasn't (1946), The Possum That Didn't (1950), and The World That Isn't (1951). These are often referred to as "children's books," although all contained satirical elements that could only be fully understood by adult readers. He also wrote and self-published an instructional booklet entitled How to Create Cartoons (about cartoon drawing, not animation) in 1952.

References

External links

• Frank Tashlin at the Internet Movie Database
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• Frank Tashlin interview
• "Private SNAFU - The Home Front", 1943 cartoon directed by Tashlin, viewable online
• New York Times article