Influential Animator. Born Charles Martin Jones in Spokane, Washington, his family moved to California while he was still an infant. As a boy, he found occasional work as a child extra in Mack Sennett comedies. At fifteen, he enrolled in the Chouinard Art Institute before he got his first job in animation as a cel washer for Ubbe Iwerks in 1932. Four years later, he was promoted to an animator working for Leon Schlesinger Studio, where his animation unit, nicknamed Termite Terrace, made the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melody cartoons. He directed his first cartoon, “The Night Watchman” in 1938 when he was billed as Charles Jones. During World War II, Jones worked with Theodore Geisel in creating the Private Snafu series of Army educational cartoons. Otherwise, he stayed with Warner Brothers Animation, heading his own unit, until it closed in 1962. It was during his tenure there that he created characters such as Pepé LePew, the Three Bears, Road Runner, and Wile E. Coyote. In 1950, two of Jones’s cartoons won Academy Awards, “For Scent-imental Reasons” with Pepé LePew and an animated short, “So Much for So Little”, which was the only cartoon ever to ever win in the documentary category. After the Warner Brothers shut down, Jones moved to MGM Studios where he created new Tom & Jerry cartoons. Also under the MGM banner he produced and co-directed the full-length feature “The Phantom Tollbooth” and directed the Academy Award-winning “The Dot and the Line.” In 1966, he directed Dr. Seuss’ “Horton Hears a Who” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” for which he won Peabody Awards for Television Program Excellence. He established his own production company, Chuck Jones Enterprises, which produced such animated specials as “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” “The White Seal,” and “A Connecticut Rabbit in King Arthur’s Court.” In 1989, he published his memoir, “Chuck Amuck.” In December 1992, his 1957 classic Bugs Bunny cartoon “What’s Opera, Doc?” was inducted into the National Film Registry. It was followed by 1953’s “Duck Amuck” and 1955’s “One Froggy Evening” making him the only director to have multiple animated shorts listed among the Registry’s films. He took home his fourth Academy Award when he was given an Honorary Oscar in 1996. At age 85, he signed a long term contract with Warner Brothers to supervise the studio’s animation department. He received an Honorary Doctorate from the American Film Institute in June 1997 and was also awarded a Directors Guild of America’s Honorary Life Membership Award. He created The Chuck Jones Foundation in the spring of 2000 in order to recognize and support excellence in animation. His last television foray was “The Chuck Jones Show” in 2001 which presented original material. Jones died at his home in California less than a year later at the age of 89. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7011 Hollywood Blvd. (bio by: Iola)  Family links:  Spouse:  Dorothy Webster Jones (1907 – 1978)