About Iwao Takamoto
Iwao Takamoto 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 Animation Studios and was hired on the spot. Without the benefit of a formal portfolio of his work, he created a sketchbook of, by his own admission, "everything I saw." It was based on this sketchbook that he applied to work at the Disney studios. He directed his first and only feature-length animated films with Charlotte's Web (1973). To get a break from camp life Takamoto became a laborer, picking fruit in Idaho. Takamoto eventually became an assistant to Milt Kahl.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.