Willard Carroll
| Willard Carroll | |
|---|---|
| Born |
November 12, 1955 Easton, Maryland, United States |
| Occupation | Film producer, writer, and director |
| Years active | 1983 – present |
Willard F. Carroll (born November 12, 1955 in Easton, Maryland) is an American film producer, writer, and director. He was executive producer of The Brave Little Toaster series, writing the screenplays for The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue and The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars.
He wrote and directed the Ragnarok-themed horror/adventure film The Runestone, the ensemble romance, Playing by Heart, the family film, Tom's Midnight Garden, and the Bollywood pastiche, Marigold. Playing by Heart was entered into the 49th Berlin International Film Festival.[1]
The book I, Toto, published by Abrams Image, 2013, second edition, is fabricated to sell books. Carroll's whole premise of the book is that he found a scrapbook of Toto. Carroll writes that he found a tin box containing a scrapbook of the Wizard of Oz dog fame, Toto while walking on a construction site of the Ventura freeway in 1993. Carroll then used fiction to tell the story of Toto's life from Toto's perspective, apparently using the scrapbook as reference. The fact is, the Ventura freeway was built in 1958 and has had little change since then. The freeway is also 40feet above ground crossing over the LA river or wash, no place for a "bulldozer" to move dirt as Carroll describes in his book. The Spitz children have also reported that there was never such a scrapbook about Toto. In fact, Carroll apparently interviewed Mrs. Spitz, Carl Spitz' spouse in 1993, but failed to interview the Spitz children whom were in their 50s in the 1990s. Abrams and Carroll have never admitted to fabricating the facts.
An ardent fan of the Land of Oz, Carroll is recognized as having the largest privately held collection of Oz memorabilia in the world, and several books, including The Wizard of Oz Collectors' Treasury and All Things Oz have been published displaying parts of is collection, which includes the Wicked Witch of the West's hourglass from the 1939 MGM film. He also wrote and produced the video series, The Oz Kids.
He established Hyperion Pictures with Thomas L. Wilhite,[2] a former Disney executive who greenlighted Return to Oz. Other animated films his studio released include The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina, The Tangerine Bear, Rover Dangerfield, and Bebe's Kids.
Director
- 1991 - The Runestone
- 1998 - Playing by Heart
- 1999 - Tom's Midnight Garden
- 2007 - Marigold
References
- ↑ "Berlinale: 1999 Programme". berlinale.de. Retrieved February 4, 2012.
- ↑ "A look inside Hollywood and the movies.". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 6, 2010.