Since retiring in 1990, Tom Halley’s career in animation art and production has spanned over 50 years. During his impressive career Tom worked as a director and animator for both the Beatles Saturday Morning Cartoon Series and Yellow Submarine.
Shortly after attending Edinburgh College of Art, Tom was accepted for J. Arthur Ranks', David Hand Studios character animation training at Cookham on Thames in England. (David Hand was the Production Director on "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" at Walt Disney Studios before coming to England).
Over the years, Tom worked at various London studios as an Animation Unit Director for Larkins and UPA (United Productions of America) in London. It’s at UPA where Tom met George Dunning. (George Dunning, who also worked on The Beatles Saturday Morning Cartoon Series, was the overall director for the film, Yellow Submarine supervising over 200 artists for 11 months). When UPA closed their production doors, TVC Animation Studio opened theirs with George Dunning at its head.
Tom was retained by TVC working on everything from ads to TV specials. In the early stages on Yellow Submarine, Tom worked for George Dunning at TVC to explore animation on Edelmanns designs for Sgt. Peppers Band.
While at TVC, Tom decided to go free-lance and worked under his company name, "Tom Halley Productions". It was at this time Al Brodax (Creator/Executive Producer of the Saturday Morning Cartoons) came over to TVC, and was hired to direct the animation on the Beatles Cartoon “Pilot” which sold the series.
As an independent contractor, Tom directed and animated various productions and ads at several studios, such as the 1966 innovative animation series “The Lone Ranger” at Halas & Batchelor and several films at Lever Bros.
Tom moved to Canada in 1970, continued directing for Halas & Batchelor, and soon started teaching advanced character animation and production, to later start the International Summer School of Animation.
Tom still lives in Canada and has been kind enough to join fellow Beatles Saturday Morning Cartoon animators/directors on our website. Tom has also signed a few of our animation sericels for the DenniLu Company. THANK YOU, TOM !
