Celebrity Biographies
Gerald Potterton
“Heavy Metal” triumphed among a sector of the public reluctant to animation. Its director, Gerald Potterton, a London-born filmmaker and animator who also contributed to the memorable “Liverpool” sequence in The Beatles’ 1968 film “Yellow Submarine,” died on August 23, 2022, in a Quebec hospital, at the 91 years . The news was announced by the National Film Board of Canada. “Gerald came to Canada to be part of a fresh and irreverent new wave of storytelling, bringing great wit and creativity to every project,” said Claude Joli-Coeur, Canadian Government Film Commissioner . “He also helped lay the foundation for today’s independent Canadian animation industry with Potterton Productions… He was an exceptional artist and a really nice man.”
Born on March 8, 1931, Gerald Potterton studied at Hammersmith Art School, a prestigious academy in the British capital. In this city he began to work as an animator, in feature films such as the aforementioned Yellow Submarine.
In 1954, Gerald Potterton emigrated to Canada, where he began working for the National Film Board. He collaborated with the prestigious playwright Harold Pinter on Pinter’s People , from 1969, and with Buster Keaton on The Railrodder , from 1965. The director was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, as responsible for the animated shorts My Financial Career and Christmas Cracker , and as a producer on The Selfish Giant, directed by Peter Sander.
The also director Ivan Reitman recruited him to lead the aforementioned Heavy Metal , which adapted the comics from the magazine “Metal Hurlant” to the movies. It consisted of several stories that had a sentient sphere of crystallized green energy called Loc Nar and its spread throughout the universe. The film was widely distributed worldwide, and has become a classic of adult animation. Two decades after filming, it had a belated sequel, Heavy Metal 2000 , which, however, did not have as much impact.
After the film, Gerald Potterton continued to be involved in various animated productions. He directed “The Boy Friend”, a musical premiered at the Lac Brome theater in Quebec.