Where was Ed Benedict?

Twenty-one years back, Ed attended TAG's Golden Awards banquet. He can be seen at the far left of the picture below the fold, sitting right next to some guy named Natwick. There were a huge number of animation heavyweights in attendance, and they seldom got together to kibitz -- let alone pose for a group picture ...

The recipients of the 1985 Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Golden Awards, Castaway Restaurant, Burbank, California; March 1, 1985. Sitting, left to right: Ed Benedict, Grim Natwick, Marie Harvey Cornell, Charlotte Huffine, Xenia De Mattia, Volus Jones, Mary Rivera, Tony Rivera, Art Babbitt, Brad Case. Standing, left to right: Lou Lilly, Mary Tebb, Suzi Dalton, Amby Paliwoda, Ken O'Connor, Phil Monroe, Nick Nichols, Ed Solomon, Don Patterson, Paul Sommer, Marc Davis, Jerry Hathcock, Ward Kimball, Woollie Reitherman, Jack Cutting, Katie Kerwin, Carl Fallberg.

Being part of the Animation Guild's Golden Award banquets in the 'eighties was, frankly, an amazing experience. Every animation big-wig seemed to attend (also a lot of animation veterans who were not high profile "names").

Left: January 13, 1984, Sorrentino's: Chuck Jones accepts the Golden Award from MPSC Business Rep Bud Hester.

The first year's awards were at Sorrentino's in Toluca Lake. It was a veritable "Who's Who" of animation giants. My wife and I sat next to Jack Kinney and his wife Jane. Kinney had directed dozens of shorts at Disney over a long career, run his own studio, and was then in retirement. Jane Kinney was quite chatty until she discovered that the young couple she was talking to were named "Hulett." Thereafter she directed most of her attention elsewhere. (Jane Kinney had been my father's first wife in a short -- and I'm guessing here -- not particularly wonderful first marriage.) But all those awards banquets were amazing. I only wish I had been more up on animation's long and storied history back then. I would have chatted up more old-timers ...