Collection: Tom Ray (1919-2010) Artist Biography and Art Gallery Collection

Tom Ray, born Thomas Archer Ray in Williams, Arizona on August 2, 1919, was an American animator who got his start at Warner Bros. Cartoons in 1937. Over the first two decades of his career, he was a junior animator who received no screen credit until Destination Earth in 1956. In 1958, he became a master animator in the Robert McKimson unit before transferring to the Chuck Jones unit, where he co-directed Adventures of the Road Runner and several Bugs Bunny Show episodes. Tom Ray followed Chuck Jones to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1963 where he directed two Tom and Jerry compilation shorts, Matinee Mouse in 1966 and Shutter Bugged Cat in 1967. Spanning over seven decades, Ray career is filled with notable credits including animation on Pink Panther shorts, Ralph Bakshi's full length animated movies "Heavy Traffic" and "Coonskin", Chuck Jones TV Specials, numerous Filmation and Hanna Barbera series, Tiny Toons Adventures and Animaniacs. Tom Ray directed many episodes of various series including the Sunbow Productions animated series Transformers based on Hasbro properties and Garfield and Friends.

Tom Ray continued working through the 1980's and 1990's, directing many episodes of various television series including Transformers and Garfield and Friends. He eventually retired from animation in Los Angeles in 1998, only to found his own animation studio, Tombstone Animation, on the East Coast. First located in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, Ray moved his studio to Virginia Beach, Virginia just before he died on April 6, 2010 at the age of 90. Ray's wife, Brenda Ellen Ray, continues to live in Virginia Beach, while his son, Thomas G. "Greg" Ray, and daughter, Donna Mouliot, followed him into the animation business.