Scrappy Portraiture

Bill Turner of ASIFA-Hollywood sent me this amazing image, which he found while going through some papers belonging to Sid Glenar, who ran an animation and title service from the 1940s into the 1970s.

That's Scrappy in the lower left-hand corner. (He is, of course (c) copyright Sony/Columbia.) But we don't know who the fellow in the photo is — if you do, please let me know.

Why did Sid create this? Well, before he had his own company, he worked at the Mintz studio. Here he is in a company photo from 1931 or thereabouts, in front on the far left. (Charles Mintz is second from right in the top row.)

Sid, Bill says, apparently tried his hand at portrait photography in the 1930s — and judging from this example, he offered photos decorated with Scrappy, or at least hoped to do so. I know of no other examples except this one, but I'd like to think there are more lurking out there somewhere.

As long as we're talking Sid Glenar and Scrappy, here's a Christmas card he sent to his friend Dick Huemer, borrowed from the wonderful collection of cards at Huemer.com. You can tell that he was proud of his job and proud of his camera…

And here's a Pabst Blue Ribbon commercial from the 1950s, animated by Glenar's company…

1 comment on Scrappy Portraiture

  • I had the opportunity to work with Sid Glenar early in my career and late in his life. I just wrote an article sharing some anecdotes about Sid. I thought you might be interested.

    Best regards, SL
    Steve Lomas

Leave a Reply to Steve Lomas Cancel reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>