Ben Hardaway
American film director (1895–1957)
title: "Ben Hardaway" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1895-births", "1957-deaths", "20th-century-american-male-writers", "20th-century-american-screenwriters", "american-animated-film-directors", "american-male-screenwriters", "american-male-television-writers", "american-television-writers", "american-male-voice-actors", "united-states-army-personnel-of-world-war-i", "american-storyboard-artists", "animators-from-missouri", "burials-at-forest-lawn-memorial-park-(hollywood-hills)", "deaths-from-cancer-in-california", "film-directors-from-missouri", "walt-disney-animation-studios-people", "walter-lantz-productions-people", "american-character-designers"] description: "American film director (1895–1957)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Hardaway" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary American film director (1895–1957) ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Ben Hardaway |
| birth_name | Joseph Benson Hardaway |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | Belton, Missouri, U.S. |
| death_date | |
| death_place | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| children | 1 |
| occupation | |
| years_active | 19121917; 19201956 |
| employer | Kansas City Post (1915–1917; 1920–1923) |
| Kansas City Film Ad Service (1923–1929) | |
| Walt Disney Productions (1932) | |
| Ub Iwerks Studio (1932–1933) | |
| Leon Schlesinger Productions (1933–1940) | |
| Warner Bros. Cartoons (1948–1949) | |
| Walter Lantz Productions (1940–1949) | |
| Tempe-Toons (1956) | |
| signature | JB_Hardaway_signature.png |
| :: |
| name = Ben Hardaway | image = | caption = | birth_name = Joseph Benson Hardaway | birth_date = | birth_place = Belton, Missouri, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S. | children = 1 | occupation =
- Storyboard artist
- animator
- voice actor
- gagman
- writer
- director | years_active = 19121917; 19201956 | employer = Kansas City Post (1915–1917; 1920–1923) Kansas City Film Ad Service (1923–1929) Walt Disney Productions (1932) Ub Iwerks Studio (1932–1933) Leon Schlesinger Productions (1933–1940) Warner Bros. Cartoons (1948–1949) Walter Lantz Productions (1940–1949) Tempe-Toons (1956) | signature = JB_Hardaway_signature.png Joseph Benson Hardaway (May 21, 1895 – February 5, 1957) was an American storyboard artist, animator, voice actor, gagman, writer and director for several American animation studios during The Golden Age of Hollywood animation. He was sometimes credited as J. B. Hardaway, Ben Hardaway, B. Hardaway and Bugs Hardaway. He fought in World War I in the 129th Field Artillery Regiment, Battery D.
Army service
Hardaway enlisted in World War I on June 4, 1917, and was discharged on April 9, 1919, serving for 26 months in total. He was led in the 129th Field Artillery Regiment by future President of the United States Harry S. Truman, in which he attended his reception planned by Forrest Smith at the Shoreham Hotel in 1949 and his inauguration, following him being re-elected. Hardaway served the last 14 months of his service in France.
Artistic career
Hardaway started his career at the Kansas City Post as a cartoonist and in 1921, illustrated a book by James W. Earp called Boomer Jones, a character created in the late 1910s by Earp, before eventually going into the animation business, working for the Kansas City Film Ad Service. He later worked for the Walt Disney Productions animation unit and the Ub Iwerks Studio, after which Hardaway was hired by the Leon Schlesinger studio as a gagman for the Friz Freleng unit. He was promoted to director for seven Buddy animated shorts. Afterwards he resumed working as a gagman and storyman. He started receiving film credits in 1937. His writing credits include Daffy Duck & Egghead and The Penguin Parade.
While at the Schlesinger/Warner Bros. studio during the late 1930s, Hardaway served as a storyman. He co-directed several Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts with Cal Dalton during Friz Freleng's two-year exodus to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Producer Leon Schlesinger needed a replacement for Freleng, and Hardaway's previous experience in the job resulted in his promotion. In 1938, Hardaway co-directed Porky's Hare Hunt, the first film to feature a rabbit. When this unnamed, embryonic rabbit was given a new model sheet for a later short, since, according to Chuck Jones, Hardaway "didn't draw it very well", designer Charlie Thorson inadvertently offered a permanent name by titling the model sheet "Bugs' Bunny" since it was meant for Hardaway's unit. By the time the rabbit was redesigned and refined for the film A Wild Hare, the name was already being used in relation to the character in studio publicity materials. The name Bugs' Bunny shows up in comics and merchandise as late as 1943.
When Freleng left MGM to return to Warner Bros. in 1939, Hardaway was demoted back to storyman. In 1940, Hardaway joined the staff of Walter Lantz Productions, where he helped Walter Lantz in creating the studio's most famous character, Woody Woodpecker. Hardaway wrote or co-wrote most of the stories for the Woody Woodpecker shorts between late 1940 and early 1951, as well as supplying Woody's voice between 1944 and 1949 (sources claiming that Hardaway was the first person to succeed Mel Blanc as Woody's voice after Blanc signed an exclusive contract with Warner Bros. are incorrect: Danny Webb, Kent Rogers, and Dick Nelson provided the voice of Woody between Blanc and Hardaway).
Shamus Culhane, the director of most of the Woody cartoons between 1944 and 1946, thought Hardaway's humor was crude and formulaic. Nevertheless, the collaboration worked, and many consider this the golden era of Woody cartoons. In 1948, Lantz temporarily shut down his studio, and Hardaway would briefly return to Warner, writing the short A Bone for a Bone. When Lantz reopened in 1950, Hardaway did not return, although two shorts he had written before he left were finished with his name appearing on screen for a final time.
Death
Hardaway died from cancer at the age of 61 on February 5, 1957, supposedly as a result of a long-term effect of exposure to chemical weapons during World War I. The last project he worked on was Adventures of Pow Wow, although he only wrote four episodes, which have lost audio.
References
References
- (April 29, 2008). "WWI letters from Bugs brings out tears".
- "The Exposure Sheet #1 & #2".
- "Bugs Hardaway of Battery D |".
- (February 2, 2019). "Tralfaz: The Non-Animated Bugs".
- Cline, Ann. (1949-01-20). "Governor, Mrs. Forrest Smith Entertain in Honor of Trumans". [[The Washington Star]].
- [https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/the-illustration-work-of-animation-giants/ The Illustration Work of Animation Giants]
- "MichaelBarrier.com -- Interviews: Frank Tashlin".
- "MichaelBarrier.com — Interviews: Remodeling the Rabbit".
- [https://archive.org/details/motionpicturedai50unse_0/page/n291/mode/2up Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1941)] "CHORTLES THE [[The New York Times. N.Y. TIMES]]: "Bugs Bunny...delightful nonsense...laugh provoking tricks...so comical...look sharp for him!""
- Bogdanovich, Peter. (1997). "Who the devil made it : conversations with Robert Aldrich, George Cukor, Allan Dwan, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Chuck Jones, Fritz Lang, Joseph H. Lewis, Sidney Lumet, Leo McCarey, Otto Preminger, Don Siegel, Josef von Sternberg, Frank Tashlin, Edgar G. Ulmer, Raoul Walsh". [[Alfred A. Knopf]].
- "biryanifan Twitter status".
- (1957-02-06). "Cartoon Creator Dies". The Kingston Daily Freeman.
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