Biography for
Tex Avery (I) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

26 February 1908, Taylor, Texas, USA

Date of Death

26 August 1980, Burbank, California, USA (lung cancer)

Birth Name

Frederick Bean Avery

Height

5' 6" (1.68 m)

Mini Biography

Tex Avery was a descendant of Judge Roy Bean and Daniel Boone, but all his grandma ever told him about it was "Don't ever mention you are kin to Roy Bean. He's a no good skunk!!" After graduating from North Dallas High School in 1927, Avery moved to Southern California in 1929 and got a job in the harbor. After showing samples of his artwork he got a job at Walter Lantz Studios in 1929 as animator. His contributions during the years at Walter Lantz Studios were minor. From 1936 to 1941 he worked as supervisor - another word for cartoon director - of some 60 titles in the Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes series for Leon Schlesinger at Warner's. From 1942 to 1954 Avery worked as director of cartoons at MGM. He was responsible for practically every MGM Cartoon that did not feature Tom and Jerry. In 1955 he did four cartoons, again for Walter Lantz Studios, before leaving the field for advertising, where, alas, his unique sense of humor went largely unappreciated, but primarily because commercials are not credited for the viewing audience (perhaps his best known commercial work was for Raid bug spray, which always featured the cartoon bugs screaming "Raid!" before getting smashed.)

Among the many cartoon characters Avery created are Daffy Duck, Droopy, Screwy Squirrel and Chilly Willy. Tex Avery is also credited with creating the basic personality of Bugs Bunny. He was the one who coined the phrase "What's up, Doc?"

IMDb Mini Biography By: Reidar Lyng <groucho@phc.chalmers.se>

Trade Mark

He liked to interrupt the actions of his films, to give a comment that always ended with "...isn't it?". A true sample is, "Incredable, aint it?". Having a cowboy chase scene suddenly replaced with the sentence, "Exciting, isn't it?"

A majority of the cartoons, that he directed, have one or more crazy credits.

Cartoons frequently have a male character who sees an extremely beautiful scantily-clad woman and turn into an anthropomorphised wolf who howls and whistles at the woman

Extensive use of anvils that usually fall from a great height and squash one of the characters

Characters in his cartoons frequently broke the "fourth wall"

Wild takes

Trivia

He was accidentally blinded in his left eye by Charles Hastings during a rubber-band propelled paper clip fight at Walter Lantz Studios, striking his left eye. Because of this, he had no depth perception.

According to biographer, Joe Adamson, when Tex was working on the cartoon A Wild Hare (1940) (it is his first official Bugs Bunny cartoon, as designed today), they were looking for something for the rabbit to say when Elmer Fudd pointed his gun to the rabbit's head, Tex, off of the top of his head, quickly suggested, "How about 'What's up doc?' " He used "doc" on many of his earlier cartoons, especially at Walter Lantz studio before this, but nobody seemed to notice. "Doc" was an expression used at North Dallas High School, which Tex attended, by Tex and many other students.

In addition to his role of a prolific supervising animation director, he also added his voice to several cartoons. Samples: Santa Claus in Who Killed Who? (1943) and lending his distinctive hysterical laugh to the bulldog in Bad Luck Blackie (1949) and just before leaving Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he was the voice of the shorter of two attempting thieves, in Deputy Droopy (1955), that he and Michael Lah co-directed, together.

Tex Avery and Michael Lah co-directed Tex Avery's last two cartoons at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, after Tex Avery decided to return back to Walter Lantz, where his career started. They are Deputy Droopy (1955) and Cellbound (1955).

Personal Quotes

He wasn't Bugs without the gags we gave him.