About Iwao Takamoto
Iwao Takamoto (Japanese: 高本 厳夫, Hepburn: Takamoto Iwao; April 29, 1925 – January 8, 2007) was an American animator, character designer, television producer, and film director. After his family had been sent to the California internment camps in the early 1940s, Takamoto learned to draw, presented his sketchbook to Walt Disney Productions and was hired on the spot. Noted for his career as a production and character designer for Disney, on films including Cinderella (1950), Lady and the Tramp (1955), and Sleeping Beauty (1959), Takamoto subsequently moved to Hanna-Barbera Productions, where he designed a great majority of the characters, notably the characters Scooby-Doo and Astro. He eventually became a director and producer. == Early life and career == Takamoto was born in Los Angeles, California. His father emigrated from Hiroshima to the United States for his health, and returned to Japan only once, to marry his wife. At 15 years of age, Takamoto graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and signing of Executive Order 9066, Takamoto's family, like many Japanese-Americans, was forced to move to the Manzanar internment camp in the early 1940s. They spent the rest of World War II there, and it was at the camp that Takamoto received basic illustration training from two co-internees who were former Hollywood art directors. To get a break from camp life Takamoto became a laborer, picking fruit in Idaho.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.