Willis H. O'Brien

In 1949, 16 years after his ground breaking work on "King Kong", Willis O'Brien worked as Chief Technician on another gorilla picture for Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Shoedsack called "Mighty Joe Young". A young Ray Harryhausen would animate most of the animation, but O'Brien did come up with the designs for the film.

On the day he received back the first printed footage of King Kong (1933) in motion he noticed that the fur covering the puppet moved because it was disturbed by his fingers during filming. He had to show the footage to the film's producer that day and was worried his boss would notice this supposed mistake and fire him. However, upon showing the producer this footage, the man applauded his ability and fine attention to detail, exclaiming that he was amazed that he even managed to make Kong's fur blow about in the wind.

O'Brien spent significant pre-production time on projects that never came to fruition. they include "Creation" (1931), "War Eagles" (1938), "Gwangi" (1941). and "Valley of the Mist" (1950).

His first marriage, to Hazel Collette, was a troubled and uneasy affair. By 1930, it had been dissolved but not before having produced 2 sons, William and Willis Jr. She suffered from tuberculosis and was often heavily sedated. The disease spread to William and blinded him. In the fall of 1933, during the production of Son of Kong (1933), Hazel shot and killed her two sons and turned the gun on herself. She survived the incident but died from cancer and tuberculosis soon afterward.

In 1928, O'Brien proposed an animated, stop-action version of "Frankenstein" and even shot test footage. In 1961, he proposed a satirical animated film called "King Kong vs. Frankenstein," later changed to "King Kong vs. the Ginko". None of these films were ever made.