Hawley Pratt

Hawley Pratt
Born	(1911-06-09)June 9, 1911 Seattle, Washington U.S.
Died	March 2, 1999(1999-03-02) (aged 87) Thousand Oaks, California U.S.
Years active	1939–1999

Hawley Pratt (June 9, 1911 – March 2, 1999) was an American film director, animator, and illustrator. He is best known for his work during the heyday of Warner Bros. Cartoons and as the right-hand man of director Friz Freleng as a layout artist and later as a director. Pratt also worked for Walt Disney Studios, Filmation, and DePatie-Freleng Enterprises where he co-created The Pink Panther.

Born in Seattle and raised in the Bronx by his widowed mother Mabel, Pratt graduated from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He became an artist at Walt Disney Studios in 1933 before joining Warner Bros. Cartoons after the Disney strike in 1941. There he served as a layout artist providing background layouts and character poses from 1945 to the early 1960s. Working closely with director Friz Freleng, Pratt's Warner Bros. resume includes the Oscar-winning cartoons Tweetie Pie, which introduced the duo of Sylvester and Tweety, Speedy Gonzales, where Freleng and Pratt redesigned the character into his modern incarnation, and Birds Anonymous. Pratt directed Señorella and the Glass Huarache, a Looney Tune released in 1964 after the studio closed its animation division.