Before He Animated For Disney, He Sketched Cartoons In An Internment Camp
As a child, Willie Ito spent nearly three years in a Japanese American internment camp. At StoryCorps, he tells his son how he went from doodling on Sears catalogs to animating for Walt Disney.
Willie Ito, 85, wanted to be an animator from the moment he first saw Snow White in theaters as a young boy.
"I remember the seven little men walking across the screen, singing, 'Heigh-ho, heigh-ho!' and I thought to myself, 'Wow, that's what I want to be.' Not one of the seven dwarves, but an animated cartoonist," Willie told his son, Vince Ito, 60, at StoryCorps last month.
