Charles Clarence Cristadoro was an American artist and sculptor, who worked for Disney at various points of his life.
Cristadoro was born in New York who studied art in St. Paul, Minnesota before returning to New York to study art at the Chase School. One of his mentors on sculpting was Gutzon Borglum, the artist behind Mount Rushmore. Cristadoro turned down the offer to help with project when his father became ill, moving him to San Diego's point Loma by 1908. His most important sculptures in San Diego are the two large figural groups above the proscenium of the Spreckels Theater which opened in 1912, and earning a bronze medal for his contributions to 1914's Panama Pacific International Exposition.
Sometime during the 1910s, Cristadoro made the acquaintance of William S. Hart the famous movie cowboy, and produced several sculptures of the actor. He found himself in famed circles of Hollywood, paling around at Hart's mansion in the 1920s with Charlie Chaplin, Amelia Earhart, and Will Rogers who all frequented the home for social gatherings. He had membership in the California Art Club and the San Diego Art Guild where he served as president in 1926 and 1927. He also served on the first board of directors of the San Diego Fine Arts Society, established in 1925. During the 1930s' he became involved in the W.P.A. Federal Theater Project in Hollywood working in the puppet division and taught at the Art Students' League in Los Angeles. He also worked on several Hollywood productions, such as the dinosaur figures for the original King Kong in 1933.
By March of 1938, he was hired by Walt Disney Productions as a character model artist in Joe Grant's department alongside Bob Jones and Wah Ming Chang. For his first assignment, he created a model of the figure of Pinocchio from the rough sketches of the character designers.[1] His model, depicting the puppet standing on his toes pointing up, assisted the animators of the feature. He also did models of Geppetto, Stromboli, and Jiminy Cricket.[2] He contributed to Dumbo, Fantasia, and Bambi before leaving in the fall of 1940.
In 1950, Cristadoro returned to the studio where he became involved with Project Little Man with the likes of Roger Broggie, Wathel Rogers, and other machinists and artists to create early Audio-Animatronics. The project was shelved during the early the push to build Disneyland and he left the studio a final time in November of 1953. Cristadoro later worked at George Pal's Puppet Studio in Hollywood, and also with the puppeteer Bob Baker.
He attempted suicide in the 1960s but failed and spent much of his life in poor health and hospital stays, among them was the Motion Picture Hospital in Woodland Hills. He died in 1967 at the San Dimas Sanitarium.
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