Walt Disney and “The Nine Old Men” Final Speaker in Series at Chapman University

Walt Disney and “The Nine Old Men”  

Final Speaker in Series at Chapman University  

April 17, 2025  ORANGE, Calif. — In the final Chapman University Walt Disney Studies Speaker Series event for this academic year, documentary director Theodore Thomas, son of celebrated Disney animator and one of the “Nine Old Men” Frank Thomas, will host the unique and rarely seen documentary, Growing Up with Nine Old Men, a fascinating story about what childhood was like within this rarefied creative “family.” Thomas will introduce this 2013 documentary featurette, and after the screening will discuss his unique connection to Walt Disney and to Disney’s golden era of animation, and reveal intimate insights into one of the studio’s most storied creative collectives. 

“The Nine Old Men” was a core group of Disney animators who worked at the Studio from the 1920s to the 1980s—the group was named by Walt Disney himself as a play on the nickname of FDR’s Supreme Court. Some of the Nine Old Men also worked as directors, creating some of Disney’s most popular animated movies from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to The Rescuers.  

According to John Canemaker, animation historian, Oscar-winning animator, and professor of film animation at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, the Nine Old Men were the backbone of Disney’s animation department, instrumental in developing and refining the art of character animation, and establishing the basic principles of the medium, which continue to be used today. 

The final event in the four-month-long series, curated by acclaimed Disney historian Jeff Kurtti, is open to the public, admission is free, and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis on Friday, May 16 at 7 p.m. in the Sandhu Conference Center located at 571 N Grand St, Orange.  

NOTE: Due to high demand, this event has been relocated to Sandhu Conference Center, 571 N Grand St, Orange. Parking is available in the Anderson Parking Structure, 300 E. Walnut Avenue, an underground parking garage beneath the football stadium. Exit on the ground level on Walnut Street and Grand, Sandhu Center is a half block north on Grand. 

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About Theodore Thomas
Thomas is a motion picture director and producer, the son of the late Disney animator Frank Thomas. His films include Where the Toys Come From (1984), a documentary about two of Disney’s “Nine Old Men,” Frank and Ollie (1995), and Walt & El Grupo (2009), documenting Disney and his group visiting South America in the summer of 1941. 

About Jeff Kurtti
Kurtti is the most prolific nonfiction author in Disney history, with over 40 volumes to his credit over 25 years. A leading authority on The Walt Disney Company, its founder, and its history, Kurtti is also a writer-director of award-winning documentary content and a respected public speaker. For several years, he worked for Walt Disney Imagineering, the theme park design division of The Walt Disney Company, and then for the Corporate Special Projects department of Disney. Since 1995, Kurtti has enjoyed a career as an author, writer, and consultant in the motion picture, theatre, and themed-design industries. He was the creative director, content consultant, and media producer for The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, and a producer of The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story, a critically acclaimed documentary about the famed Disney songwriters.  

About Chapman University
Founded in 1861, Chapman University is a nationally ranked private university in Orange, California, about 30 miles south of Los Angeles. Chapman serves nearly 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students, with a 12:1 student-to-faculty ratio. Students can choose from over 100 areas of study within 11 colleges for a personalized education. Chapman is categorized by the Carnegie Classification as an R2 “high research activity” institution. Students at Chapman learn directly from distinguished world-class faculty, including Nobel Prize winners, MacArthur fellows, published authors, and Academy Award winners. The campus has produced a Rhodes Scholar, been named a top producer of Fulbright Scholars, and hosts a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honor society. Chapman also includes the Harry and Diane Rinker Health Science Campus in Irvine. The university features the No. 4 film school and No. 66 business school in the U.S. Learn more about Chapman University: www.chapman.edu.  

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