John Lasseter was born in Hollywood, California, on January 12, 1957. At the age of five, he won his very first award for $15 from the Model Grocery Market in Whittier, California, for a crayon drawing of the Headless Horseman.
Source: Walt Disney Studios
After seeing Disney's "The Sword in the Stone" in 1963, Lasseter knew he wanted to be an animator and work for Walt Disney.
Source: Reuters
He was the second student to be accepted into the newly formed Character Animation Program at the California Institute of the Arts in 1975. Tim Burton was the third student.
Source: Vanity Fair
While at CalArts, he made two animated shorts, "Lady and the Lamp" and "Nitemare," which both won him the Student Academy Award for Animation. He is the only two-time winner of the award.
Source: Walt Disney Studios
After graduation, Lasseter and several of his classmates were hired at Walt Disney Feature Animation, but the new class of animators didn't mesh well with the old one. They were put to work on "The Fox and the Hound," but most didn't stay long.
Lasseter said: "We were so on fire and constantly giving suggestions. It was all constructive, but the people running animation seemed to resent us. One of the directors told me, 'You put in your time for 20 years and do what you're told, and then you can be in charge.' I didn't realize it then, but I was beginning to be perceived as a loose cannon. All I was trying to do was make things great, but I was beginning to make some enemies."
Source: Vanity Fair, Fortune
Already influenced by "Star Wars," Lasseter found even greater influence in "Tron" and its ability to add dimension to animation. It inspired him to try the method with "The Brave Little Toaster." But he stepped on too many toes in the process, and his zeal ultimately got him fired from Disney.
Source: Fortune
He attended a computer graphics conference in 1983 where he talked with Ed Catmull, the head of the computer division at Lucasfilm. Later that day, Catmull recruited Lasseter for Lucasfilm to work on the short film "The Adventures of André & Wally B."
Source: Fortune
In 1984, Lasseter was hired full-time at Lucasfilm as an interface designer. Also "The Adventures of André & Wally B." premiered at SIGGRAPH, a special interest group on computer graphics.
Pixar says the short featured "groundbreaking technology such as complex flexible characters, hand-painted textures, and motion blur."
Source: Pixar
In 1986, Steve Jobs purchased the computer division at Lucasfilm and created the independent Pixar. In the same year, Lasseter became Pixar's first animator and completed his directorial debut, "Luxo Jr." (The idea came after he played around with creating a digital model of his Luxo desk lamp.) It was the first CGI film nominated for an Academy Award — best animated short — and it established Pixar's mascot: Luxo Jr.
Source: Pixar, Walt Disney Studios, "Pixar: The Company and Its Founders" by A. M. Buckley
From the beginning, Lasseter knew he wouldn't be able to compete with the computer programmers and their knowledge of the hardware. Instead, he opted to work alongside them because they didn't know what he knew, "and that was how to bring a character to life and give it emotion and personality through pure movement."
Source: The Walt Disney Company/ YouTube
Two years later, Lasseter's work won an Academy Award when "Tin Toy" took home the Oscar for best animated short film —the first time a computer-animated film won an Oscar.
Source: Walt Disney Studios
Pixar and Lasseter carried over the toy-centric plot of "Tin Toy" into the studio's first feature-length film "Toy Story," which is also the first-ever computer-animated feature film.
Source: Pixar
Lasseter's "Toy Story" team felt ambition and challenge in the air because, at the time, the computer-animation industry didn't really exist. "Toy Story" story artist Kelly Asbury said, "Many people rejected it and did not think it was possible."
Source: Mashable
The challenges brought out the qualities in Lasseter that got him fired from Disney years before. He said, "I was so geeky and into this stuff. I'd always say, 'Hey can we do this?' They’d say, 'No, but let's try,' and they'd do R&D to get there. Meanwhile, all that R&D is inspiring different ideas. Then I'd say, 'Oh can we do this with it?' and come up with ideas we'd never thought of."
Source: TIME
"Toy Story" went on to become the highest-grossing film of 1995, making nearly $192 million domestically, and earned Lasseter a Special Achievement Academy Award.
Source: Box Office Mojo, Oscars/ YouTube
Lasseter went on to create and direct feature-length animated films "A Bug's Life" (1998), "Toy Story 2" (1999), "Cars" (2006), and "Cars 2" (2011). He also executive-produced all Pixar features since "Monsters, Inc." (2001) — that's about 70 feature films and shorts.
Source: Walt Disney Studios, IMDb
In 2006, Disney bought Pixar and named Lasseter chief creative officer of both animated studios. He was also named principal creative adviser at Walt Disney Imagineering, where he helps design attractions for Disney Parks.
Walt Disney Studios went from making underperforming films like "Home on the Range" and "Treasure Planet" to big successes like "The Princess and the Frog" and "Wreck-It Ralph."
Source: CNN Money, Walt Disney Studios
In the same year he was promoted, Lasseter announced that Disney would once again produce short cartoons to put the company back at the forefront of the form it pioneered.
Nowadays, we have the "Frozen Fever" short before "Cinderella," "Lava" before "Inside Out," and "Feast" before "Big Hero 6."
Source: The New York Times
In 2010, he was honored with the Producers Guild of America David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Motion Pictures "in recognition of an outstanding body of work." Lasseter was the first producer of animated films to be given the award.
Source: Producers Guild of America
Lasseter finally became a part of one of his films in 2011 when he was included in "Cars 2" as John Lassetire.
Source: TV Guide
In 2012, Cars Land launched in Disney California Adventure Park. Lasseter was instrumental in bringing the characters and settings of Radiator Springs to life in this expansion.
Source: Walt Disney Studios
Now, Lasseter grooms the studio's directors and passionately pushes for open feedback in the company.
Source: Variety
When Comcast bought DreamWorks Animation earlier this year, its chairman of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group said, "The model that we're trying to use is John Lasseter."
Source: Variety
Upcoming: Lasseter will continue his "Toy Story" and "Cars" empires with "Cars 3," set for 2017, and "Toy Story 4," set for 2018.
Source: Entertainment Weekly