Look Who it Was Random video

Jules Engel - Hollywood's high-flyers (28/95)

61 views · Published 20 July 2017 · 3:29 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Film & Animation

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To listen to more of Jules Engel’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxkaG0vffAILup4dNZ3FwO0

The late film-maker Jules Engel (1909-2003) was born in Hungary and later emigrated to America where he worked at the Walt Disney Studios on films that included ‘Bambi’ and ‘Fantasia’. After leaving Disney, Engel co-founded the United Productions of America Studios. [Listeners: Bill Moritz and Tamara Tracz; date recorded: 2003]

TRANSCRIPT: There were people who were flying all over Europe. But that's one thing which, I was in animation, so naturally, we had little of that aspect of it. But we had a captain and he was sort of gung-ho a little bit and he was a flyer, he's a pro. And he would [unclear], he says, 'You want to fly? You want to experience flying to people'? 'Yeah, sure'. So he took them off, he covered them over with plastic and then he does the loops and this poor bastard, you know, he didn't expect it to do loops, so he came down as sick as a dog. But the guy who was a captain, he was part of us, you know, animation, and he just did that to most of the people who wanted to go up for the ride. And he came to me - 'No thank you. No, thank you'. I knew what he was doing, he took you up and then, wow. While he was having fun, but meanwhile you were getting sick as a dog because he was doing that. But that world was, if I was in another army, it would have been a different… different experience. Here, you were at home, really. That was comfortable. And they were really, as ugly as war is and all that, but some people were really just already in the hierachy, they were bigger than the numbers, they were really nice. Nobody ever used… Remember the film where there was a little short guy? He was a big actor in Hollywood. He wasn't more than 5' 9”, 5' 11”, 5' 10”. And he was walking around with a stick with a nail at the bottom and picking up cigarette butts and he was a big actor. And he did one film, he was on a horse, he was going some place and then he gets in this bar, there was two guys, two sailors, you know? And he was short, he was a little guy and they began to push him around and his horse was outside, you know? And he was just taking that for a while. And then he got to the point where they were really pushing him around a little bit and then he let one go, wham. And that was beautifully done, he hits this guy and I mean, he lands it, and this guy just rolls and rolls, slides right through the damn bar and everything. And then he just walks out quietly, sits on his horse and drives away. Famous film. And he was married to a very important Hollywood actress and he was... But there he was, you see, he's picking up bits and butts and I'm upstairs drawing and having fun, you know? And he was a million dollar actor. And yet no one would tell him, 'Hey, you left a butt over there'. Forget it, he just went by picking up cigarette butts. But it was a joke, you know, to a degree.

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