The Animation Guild Golden Award Interviews #24 -- Lew Irwin and Betty Brenon

We don't hear a lot about the people who were a notch or two down from the "stars" of the animation business -- the Ward Kimballs and Chuck Jones and Milt Kahls -- who have been celebrated in books and documentaries. But they were there, doing the work that needed to be done getting cartoons on the silver screen. Betty Brenon and Lew Irwin were two of those artists.



Lew Irwin worked at Schlesingers before World War 2 and Warners after it. He began his career in the 1930s as an in-betweener, and by the end of his journey through Cartoonland half a century later, Mr. Irwin was a production manager and supervisor of assistant animators. ...

Betty Brenon also worked farther down the food chain, painting and inking cels for Leon Schlesinger (where she was hired in 1933) and went on to a multitude of other studios ... which included running her own ink-and-paint service.