Derek Lamb (1936-2005)

The National Film Board of Canada and the world animation community have lost a dear friend and a great talent. Legendary animator Derek Lamb died on November 5, 2005, after a lengthy illness, with his wife, Tracie Smart, at his side.

Derek first joined the NFB in 1959. Over the course of a remarkable career spanning more than four decades, he contributed to over two hundred film and video productions as a director, producer, animator, composer – and even as a singer.

Derek's early NFB film credits include directing the classic NFB animated short I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly as well as story and design for The Great Toy Robbery. In the mid-1960s, Derek left the NFB to pursue other projects, including working as a film director and producer in the U.K and offering animation and filmmaking workshops at Harvard University. His independent filmmaking credits during this period included A History of Communications, prepared for Expo '67, and The Shepherd, honoured with a 1971 Academy Award nomination.

Derek returned to the NFB as Executive Producer of the NFB's English Animation Studio from 1976 to 1982. During his tenure as studio head, he was creatively involved in over one hundred film and video productions, including two NFB Oscar winners: Derek produced Special Delivery by John Weldon and Eunice Macaulay, and produced and scripted Eugene Fedorenko's Every Child.

Working again as an independent in the mid-'80s, Derek and animator Eugene Fedorenko collaborated on the very first animation sequences made for the IMAX system, for the production Skyward, first presented at the Tsukuba World's Fair in Japan in 1985.

In 1983, Derek and his former wife Janet Perlman, an acclaimed animator in her own right, formed their own independent film production company.

With Eugene and Janet, Derek created the well-known titles for the PBS series Mystery!, based on the art of Edward Gorey. In 1986, he returned to Harvard as a visiting lecturer.

From 1988 to 1998 Derek worked with children's organizations such as Save the Children, Street Kids International and UNICEF, on productions promoting health and education for poor and marginalized children around the world. During this period he directed and produced Karate Kids, an NFB animated film designed to provide practical AIDS prevention information for street children, as well as its independently produced sequel, Goldtooth. He also taught animation at McGill University and at the National Institute of Design in India.

Derek recently worked on the children's series based on the acclaimed NFB animated short Peep and the Big Wide World. Of course, he also lent his memories, voice and likeness to Chris Landreth's NFB co-production Ryan, an Oscar-winning animated portrait of former NFB animator Ryan Larkin.

For all his accomplishments in cinema, what is less known about Lamb was that he had been an accomplished folksinger in the early 1960s. His collection of British music hall songs were collected in an album distributed by Folkways entitled She Was Poor But She Was Honest. He opened for a then-unknown Bob Dylan in '62. A favourite Lamb anecdote involved a fellow who told him after the show: "That guy (Dylan) was no good. But you were just great. You are definitely going places.»  He had very recently recorded a new collection of British WWII songs called Songs Hitler Hated in WWII featuring Derek Lamb and the Chums.  The CD will be released posthumously.

On a personal note, Derek Lamb was a man of enormous charisma, warmth, and humour.  He loved people and people loved him back. For a man with such prodigious talent and creativity, he was decidedly humble if even a bit shy. He was also extremely generous with his talents and gladly served as a mentor and inspiration to literally thousands.

Derek is survived by two sons, Richard and Thomas, his wife Tracie, and a granddaughter, Vivian – as well as the innumerable people whose lives he touched and enriched.