Cecil Hays Surry (April 19, 1907 – September 19, 1956) was a cartoonist at various film studios in theGolden Age of Animation.
Surry was born to Bert F. and Lydia or Lida B. (Knoblock) Surry inChelan, Washington, where his father and uncle owned an orchard. He spent his youth in Washington State; the family moved by 1922 to San Diego. Surry enrolled in theOtis Art Institute and, as a second-year student, won a poster competition sponsored by the Junior League of Los Angeles for the third annual horse show of the Flintridge Riding Club.[1]
By 1931, he got a job atWalt Disney Animation[2] where he met his future wife Constance Berry.[3] Voters lists show they married sometime between 1932 and 1934 (they also show he switched from being a registered Republican to Democrat before 1946).
Surry was first credited as an animator atWalter Lantz Productions studio in the 1933 shortGoing to Blazes. When fellow Lantz animatorTex Avery left to take a director's job atWarner Bros. Cartoons, Surry,Virgil Ross andSid Sutherland went with him to work in the originalTermite Terrace unit withChuck Jones,Bob Clampett,Robert (Bobe) Cannon and assistant animatorElmer Wait. He is credited on only three Warner Bros. cartoons. Surry left to work at the reorganisedMGM cartoon studio[4] where he eventually was placed in theHanna-Barbera unit to work onTom and Jerry cartoons, including uncredited work on the 1941 shortThe Night Before Christmas and 1942 shortDog Trouble.[5]
In 1950, Surry began work atUPA. For a brief period in 1952, he returned to the Lantz studio and is credited as animator on three cartoons before returning to UPA, where he remained until his death in Los Angeles at age 49. By an odd coincidence, his only brother, Paul Wilson Surry, also died at the age of 49, in 1956.
Surry worked on twoOscar-winning cartoons,When Magoo Flew (1954) andMagoo's Puddle Jumper (1956).
He was also an artist forDell Comics about the time he went to UPA.[6]
