The next is from the unique unit created from Motion Picture Industry professionals, the First Motion Picture Unit. Featuring many famous actors such as Ronald Reagan, Clark Gable, William Holden, and Alan Ladd as well as directors such as Jack Warner, Richard Bare and John Sturges. For animation historians, many animators from Disney. Warners, Universal and other studios worked together. Some of these artists went on to create UPA. The unit was quartered at the Hal Roach studios known during the war as Fort Roach. The unit created and released many propaganda and recruiting films.
Disney artist Van Kaufman created many insignia designs while at Disney's including many of the first designs to come out of the Studio. Many of the Disney designs featured in the Hearst newspaper insignia stamp albums were created by Van. One of his sons provided me with a HUGE archive of related material. The interesting thing is Van also served with the First Motion Picture Unit, and he is the artist who designed the unit's logo, as pictured on the second matchbook. If anyone is interested, my revised book on Disney's involvement in the war has now been released as an e-book on Amazon - the new title is "Service With Character. The Disney Studio and World War II." The revised edition numbers 88,000 words, and has 14 chapters, 385 images, of which 340 are in color, 10 appendices, and end notes. I've included almost double the number of pictures and a whole lot of new info in this revised edition. There are no plans right now to produce the book in paper form.
ReplyDeleteI really love the Disney-designed WWII insignia! So well drawn, and amazing relics from that historic era.
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