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Charles B. Mintz (1889 – January 4, 1940) was an American film producer and distributor, who took control over Margaret J. Winkler's Winkler Pictures after marrying her in 1924.

Mintz was unhappy with the production costs on Walt Disney & Ub Iwerks's Alice Comedies and asked the two to develop a new character. The result was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, which would be the first animated character for Universal Pictures. In February, 1928, when the character proved more successful than expected, Mintz hired all of Disney's animators except Iwerks, who refused to leave Disney, and took over the production of Oswald cartoons from his new Winkler Studio with Margaret Winkler's brother George.

After losing the Oswald contract to Walter Lantz, Mintz focused on the output of another Winkler-distributed short series, the Krazy Kat series, the Winkler Studio became first the Mintz studio after he took over in 1929 and later Screen Gems after Columbia Pictures took over from him in 1939, a few months before he died in 1940.

He was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Short Subject. His first nomination was in 1935 for "Holiday Land," and he was nominated again in 1938 for "The Little Match Girl." He lost both Oscars to Disney-made films.

[edit] Trivia

• In the 2009 film Up, the villian Charles Muntz is said to have his name borrowed from Charles B. Mintz.

[edit] External links

• Charles B. Mintz at the Internet Movie Database
• The Columbia Crow's Nest - Columbia Cartoon History - Charles Mintz page

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