Ben Hardaway...Man of Mystery...?

[Sogturtle]

Here's something to amuse and puzzle all cartoon fiends...

J.B.en "Bugs" Hardaway now in death for nearly 45 years has the dubious distinction of having AT LEAST 3 separate birth years listed for him!!! The years given (so far) are 1891, 1895, and 1897. Any of these dates are possible as he served in WWI under future president Harry Truman. Buuuuuut then another possible birth date of 1901 would be quite possible if he lied about his age to be sure he got into the army.

The "Ben" in his moniker is believed to stand for "Benson" orrrrr maybe even "Benton" or even by Joe Adamson for the much more Biblical "Benjamin"...

Annnnnnd to make matters worse yet, although everyone seems to agree that the "J." stood for "Joseph", that too may be badly in error...

Comments Gentletoonfiends???

[J Lee]

Given the rowdiness quotent of his infantry unit and his eventual bonding with HST to the point they continued post-war correspondence, I would probably put my money on one of the middle dates, which at 20-22 would make him old enough to be one of the ringleaders of a unit that chewed up and spit out sergeants.

My big question about J.B. has always been what happened at Warners in 1949-50 that got both him and Cal Howard back onto the studio payroll working with Friz again and then out of the studio in a matter of months (especially since the neither of the two cartoons they were credited with working on was a clinker and Friz' cartoons of the same time with no story credit were also very good). Was it part of the "office politics" McKimson referred to when he was discussing how Warren Foster ended up over at the Freleng unit right after the Hardaway-Howard return (and how he ended up with Tedd Pierce as his storyman)?

[laugh4me]

Originally posted by Sogturtle

J.... Buuuuuut then another possible birth date of 1901 would be quite possible if he lied about his age to be sure he got into the army.

Annnnnnd to make matters worse yet, although everyone seems to agree that the "J." stood for "Joseph", that too may be badly in error...

Comments Gentletoonfiends???
Well, the Social Security Death Index lists a James Hardaway who died in June of '57 and was born Nov 10, 1901.

Could this be him?

For those who want to try this at home... go to this website. (http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi) I picked the "Advanced search" button and entered a last name of Hardaway and a year of death of 1957 .

[Matt Yorston]

I don't think James Hardaway is Ben. Why? I also went to rootsweb.com (the same site you went to) and entered the name, Joseph Benson Hardaway (Ben's full name, allegedly). There was 1 result, listing a birthdate of May 21, 1895 (one of Ben's presumed years of birth) and a death date of February 5, 1957. It lists the birth place as "Missouri" which is where Ben Hardaway was indeed from.

[laugh4me]

I think you are right Matt.

I'm not sure why that entry doesn't appear in the search I tried... :rolleyes:

[Sogturtle]

....Annnnnd I should go find my original printed obit of the real Ben from amongst my files... True??

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by Sogturtle
....Annnnnd I should go find my original printed obit of the real Ben from amongst my files... True??

Hmmmm... Have been checking the on-line 1900 Census of both Missouri and Kansas. Ifffffff our Ol' Ben was born anytime in the 1890's then he should show up as a child... As of this moment, I've yet to find him... at least under the names of Joseph, Joe, Ben, Benson, Benton, Benjamin, or even James or Jim... AND with the last name spelled as either Hardaway and Hartaway. Haven't found any trace of the galoot yet... (Except one Hardaway boy born ca. 1892 with the middle initial given as "J." (But then my own paternal grandfather doesn't appear to show in the on-line 1900 census).

Annnnnd a word on the on-line Social Security Death Index, which is generally a fine resource... In it we learn that Friz Freleng was born in 1904 rather than in 1906... Was this a data-entry typo?? Or did Social Security make a mistake?? Orrrr Did Friz fib about his age all his life (except to Social Security), trimming off a couple years???

[DR. BELCH]

--those great Mysteries of Tinseltown, along with the name of the first Mrs. Curly Howard, or who bashed in Bob Crane's face in a cheap motel room in 1978, and with what. :rolleyes:

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by J Lee


....My big question about J.B. has always been what happened at Warners in 1949-50 that got both him and Cal Howard back onto the studio payroll working with Friz again and then out of the studio in a matter of months (especially since the neither of the two cartoons they were credited with working on was a clinker and Friz' cartoons of the same time with no story credit were also very good). Was it part of the "office politics" McKimson referred to when he was discussing how Warren Foster ended up over at the Freleng unit right after the Hardaway-Howard return (and how he ended up with Tedd Pierce as his storyman)?

John~

Actually, the answers to that are found in the OTHER STUDIOS politics. Nobody remembers this, but although Cal Howard was highly regarded as a writer, he was a fast-change artist of sorts, and pulled a quick switcheroo and returned to former-employer Lantz in 1938-1939 just before heading for the Florida Fleischers. In the later Forties when Ray Katz and Henry Binder took over Screen Gems with Bob Clampett briefly as creative head, Clampett brought in Warner ex-patriates Cal Howard and Dave Monahan (who'd hardly ever worked with him at Schlesinger's!!). When the ax fell at Screen Gems, Cal Howard managed to get back in at Warners, but at a very bad time (the Art Davis unit had just been laid off). And even before that writing jobs weren't secure there (Davis's writers had been put into competition, with each other. The loser(s) got fired!! And were replaced by Sid Marcus). As perverse as it may all sound the addition of Howard and Hardaway to the cartoon payroll MAY have been made possible ONLY with the use of money formerly earmarked for the Davis unit... (Not a thought I countenance lightly...)

Hardaway's career for the previous (near) decade had of course been spent at Lantz's. When Lantz got in a big financial hole he effectively closed the studio, Ben hit the sidewalk, but managed to beg a job back at Warner's (he and Friz went back a LONNNNNNG way). ...Coincidentally at the same time as former rival Cal Howard. When Hardaway finagled a storyman job on the very early TV (1949) "POW WOW" cartoon series he obviously couldn't do that and work for Warners... So those two CREDITED (Hardaway or Howard) cartoons and uncredited ones (as we discussed once before) form a fine coda to Freleng's associations with these two men (and former minor Schlesinger/Warner directors).

The Warner "office politics" in question ran something like this... In a nutshell...it was Friz's doing... (sorry to say, but he had seniority over McKimson and Jones, and got what he asked for). Friz's reasons for wanting Warren Foster in place of Tedd ("with two "d's") Pierce were simple... but ultimately quite damaging to Bob McKimson. Freleng stated several times that Foster was able to beautifully construct a WHOLE STORY beginning, middle, and end, to which Friz then added his own gags and changed and embellished whatever he wanted to in the story. Whereas he stated that Tedd could never build a full story and he (Friz) had to do much more. Chuck has contradicted this somewhat and said that Tedd was actually good at story construction but weak at gag creation. Michael Maltese stated that Pierce was weak at gag generation. And the fired Bill Scott though had nothing but praise for all three storymen !!

[David Gerstein]

Hey, guys.

An animation historians' APA to which I belong once reprinted Ben Hardaway's late-1940s resumé (!) in its pages. From it I can offer the full scoop on his early history.

Full name: Joseph Benson Hardaway
Born: May 21, 1895

Resume shows that he worked for the following studios:
Ub Iwerks (August 1931 to October 1933)— then left becuse he "desired a change"
Walt Disney (October and November 1933)— then left because he was "offered more money" at...
Leon Schlesinger (November 1933 to March 1939)— then left because he was "laid off" and ended up at
Walter Lantz (October 1939 to December 1947)— reason for departure not given, and then
Warner Bros. (November 1948 to April 1949)— then got "laid off"
[...and that's as far as the resumé goes...]

Hopefully this clears up the mysteries well and truly. For whatever it's worth, accompanying letters from Ben also printed in the APA have him personally claiming to have created Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker.

David Gerstein

[Sogturtle]

David Gerstein~

I do greatly appreciate the Hardaway resume... The catch to it that it's from Ben's hand, for better or worse. Maybe it does clear everything, but maybe it doesn't. It appears he has left out his years of work at Kansas City Film Ad Co. for whatever reasons. The years there opened the door to his whole Hollywood career, so they are quite important. Strange he would leave them out... The other work dates are identical to those reprinted elsewhere (so this tells us their source). His date of leaving Leon's employ is intriguing as his name goes on appearing as storyman on Warner cartoons up through MID-1940 (Was the production time that slow? Was the backlog that big?) Or was Ben just guessing the date ten years after the fact??? Other people have remembered him leaving in early 1940, and that jibes much better!!! Buuuuuuut the real puzzler to it remains why he doesn't show up in the 1900 Census of Missouri or Kansas, unless the family was somewhere else, or was mis-indexed, orrrr less likely, that he wasn't born till after June 1900. The reasons for his birth being listed elsewhere as 1891 and 1897 I find hard to comprehend...

Annnnnd I just double checked Friz's Social Security on a different S.S. website, and it gives the SAME birth year (1904)... But then I followed that by checking his headstone and it shows indeed he was born in 1906... So which was right, family or govenment???

[David Gerstein]

Hi Tim!

Relax; Hardaway didn't leave anything out. I just didn't transcribe his whole resumé because I thought only his actual animation work was relevant here.
The resumé says that he worked for "United Film Ad" in Kansas City (as he calls it) from 1922 to 1928 as an ad writer, then from 1928 to 1931 as the branch manager of their Milwaukee WI office. Hope this clarifies things.
Hardaway lists his birthplace as Belton, Missouri, if that helps anything.

David

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by David Gerstein
Hi Tim!

Relax; Hardaway didn't leave anything out. I just didn't transcribe his whole resumé because I thought only his actual animation work was relevant here.
The resumé says that he worked for "United Film Ad" in Kansas City (as he calls it) from 1922 to 1928 as an ad writer, then from 1928 to 1931 as the branch manager of their Milwaukee WI office. Hope this clarifies things.
Hardaway lists his birthplace as Belton, Missouri, if that helps anything.

David

Hi David~

Thanks for that addition, I couldn't conceive why ol' Ben would have left out his Kansas City work... But it's amusing that there is something from it that Ben left out... For although Hardaway was not known to draw happily, Friz made it very clear that Ben's job in Kansas City did actually include...ANIMATING!!! Evidently was one of things he didn't brag about!! ;) ;)

As I said before it looks like the date he has down for leaving Leon appears to be off by quite a number of months. His "March 1939 " recollection is possibly the date he (and Cal Dalton) were canned as directors (then demoted back to their former jobs). Sources have varied as to when Friz actually escaped MGM and returned to the bosom of Abraham (okay, bosom of Leon :D ). What is for certain also is that the date (Oct. 1939 ) Hardaway gives of joining Lantz is an ENORMOUS error (or more likely an outright fabrication ). The REAL date he joined Walter Lantz on staff was Aug. 12, 1940 !!! And the date of his authoring the first Woody toon "Knock Knock" would have been while he was freelancing, orrrrrr possibly even while still under contract to Schlesinger. All Schlesinger artists had iron-clad clauses in their contracts about ANYTHING created while on Schlesinger's payroll belonging to Leon. Thus Hardaway had to, even years later make a big gap between his leaving Leon's studio and his selling the "Knock Knock" script (and Woody character) to Walter Lantz. Because if he authored the script prior to leaving Schlesinger's abode, then the red-headed-boid would legally be the property of Schlesinger and his successor, Warner Bros... Sooooo he definitely lied about those two dates (leaving Leon's and joining Lantz's). A big reason for me doubting his recollections...

Still haven't found his family in the 1900 census... Anybody know his parents first names for sure??

[Sogturtle]

Matt Yorston~

I'm very, very puzzled, mystified, bamboozled, confused etc. I tried and tried to dredge up Ben by the full name (Joseph Benson...) on the website http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi . And I keep getting nothing (even when in frustration reducing it back down to essentials. Tried the same thing on another Social Security website and nothing there either... (I have CD Roms of the S.S. but they were lent to someone and they don't appear to have been returned to me).

How did you do it??? Can you replicate it now...???

[Matt Yorston]

Sorry to disappoint you but Ben doesn't have a Social Security Death Count. I went to the main page (www.rootsweb.com) and entered the name Joseph Hardaway. There were 2 results (under California Death Index). One of the 2 had the middle name Benson. That was probably Ben.

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by Matt Yorston
Sorry to disappoint you but Ben doesn't have a Social Security Death Count. I went to the main page (www.rootsweb.com) and entered the name Joseph Hardaway. There were 2 results (under California Death Index). One of the 2 had the middle name Benson. That was probably Ben.

Ahhhh Mr. Yorston...

Thank you!!! THAT WORKS and it does indeed read...

Last Name First Name Middle Birth Date Mother Maiden Father Last Sex Birth Place Death Place Residence Death Date SSN Age

HARDAWAY JOSEPH BENSON 5/21/1895 HAMILTON HARDAWAY M MISSOURI LOS ANGELES(19) 2/05/1957 562-05-6422 61 yrs

Intriguing that it shows his Mother's maiden name as "Hamilton"... Very unlikely to be kin to great early animator Rollin "Ham" Hamilton though (course they're both from Missouri ;) ).

Much as I hate to say it there is a curiosity with it though... This California death record does indeed show Hardaway as having a Social Security number (562-05-6422) even though he is not listed in either of the on-line SS sites... Weird