Pat Sullivan (film producer)

Sullivan was born in Paddington, New South Wales, the second son of Patrick Sullivan, an immigrant from Ireland and his Sydney-born wife Margaret, née Hayes.^[4]

Around 1909, Sullivan left Australia and spent a few months in London, England, before moving to the United States around 1910. He worked as assistant to newspaper cartoonist William Marriner and drew five strips of his own. When Marriner died in 1914, Sullivan joined the new animated cartoon studio set up by Raoul Barré. In 1915, Sullivan was fired by Barre for general incompetence. In 1916, William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate, set up a studio to produce animated cartoons based on his paper's strips and hired Barre's best animators. Sullivan decided to start his own studio and made a series called "Sammy Johnsin" based on a Marriner strip on which he had worked. This was followed by a series of shorts starring Charlie Chaplin's film character The Tramp.^[6]

As Mickey Mouse was gaining popularity among theatre audiences through sound cartoons by late 1928, Sullivan, after years of refusing to convert Felix to sound, finally agreed to use sound in Felix's cartoons. Unfortunately, Sullivan did not carefully prepare this process and put sound in cartoons that the studio had already completed.^[7] By 1930, Felix had faded from the screen.^[7] Sullivan relented in 1933, and announced that Felix would return in sound, but died that year before production began.^{[citation needed]}

By the early 1930s, Sullivan's alcoholism had completely consumed him. According to artist George Cannata, Sullivan would often fire employees in a drunken haze, not remembering the next day, when they would return to work as if nothing had happened.^{[citation needed]} According to Shamus Culhane, Sullivan artist Al Eugster recalled that Sullivan was "[t]he most consistent man in the business—consistent in that he was never sober". According to Otto Messmer, Sullivan drank all day long and was never in a sound enough state of mind to contribute creatively to the cartoons he produced. In later years, much of Sullivan's staff was interviewed and claimed Messmer deserved all credit for the Felix character's creation and development, arguing that Sullivan was too sick to contribute or even really run the studio.^{[citation needed]}

Sullivan died on 15 February 1933^[5] in New York City^[4] at age 47^[4] from health problems brought on by alcoholism and pneumonia.^[4] (At the time, newspapers attributed his death to only pneumonia.)^[8][9]

• Felix the Cat (disputed)
• Great Idea Jerry
• Willing Waldo
• Old Pop Perkins
• Johnny Boston Beans
• Obliging Oliver

In 1917, Sullivan was convicted of rape in the second degree of a 14-year-old girl. He spent 9 months and 3 days in prison,^[10] during which time his studio went on hiatus.

Sullivan reportedly carried a strong bias against African Americans. According to Rudy Zamora, when he and Eddie Salter tested for positions at the Sullivan studio, they were bested by a young African-American boy. Zamora recalled that animator Dana Parker "took the black boy [aside] and told him that they'll call him when they needed him, [as they were] not hiring anyone that day. But they kept Eddie and I. That was lousy. Then they would have hired this black guy and myself. Ed was third." When Zamora complained about this to Parker, he was told, "The old man [Sullivan] didn't want any black guys."^[11]