Celebrity Biographies
Bill Melendez
Snoopy has lost his voice. Veteran Mexican animator Bill Melendez, who always voiced the famous dog in animated versions, died on the morning of September 2 at San Juan Hospital in Santa Monica. He was 91 years old and according to the doctors who treated him, he died “peacefully, naturally.”
José Cuauhtémoc Meléndez was born on November 15, 1916 in Sonora (Mexico). After emigrating to the United States, he studied at the Chouinard Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles. He debuted as an animator in 1938, when he was hired by the Walt Disney Studios . Apparently, he was one of the few Latinos who worked with the great pioneer of animation. He collaborated on titles like Pinocchio , Fantasia , Dumbo , and Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck shorts. He then moved on to Warner, where he appeared in shorts featuring such well-known characters as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. He also collaborated with the production company UPA, for example he was part of the cheerleading team for Gerald McBoing Boing, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Short, in 1954.
Starting in the late 1940s, Melendez turned to commercials. On a campaign for a car company, he collaborated with cartoonist Charles M. Schulz , creator of Snoopy and other characters from the ‘Peanuts’ comic strip. The two became close friends and eventually became the only person Schulz authorized to animate his characters. He directed four feature films, several hour-long specials, and more than 60 30-minute episodes of the character. He highlights A Charlie Brown Christmas, a Christmas classic, and A Boy Named Charlie Brown . For the latter, he was nominated for an Oscar for best soundtrack, since it had been co-written by Melendez and Vince Guaraldi .
Melendez used to tell that while he was working on a Charlie Brown title, a manager approached him to ask him to do everything possible to speed up the time it took to animate the film. Melendez gave him a pencil and said: “Take it and draw, so you can see how difficult it is.”