Hearing Børge Ring Play

Makin' Whoopee! played by Børge Ring in 1978.

This music means a lot to me! It was the opening of the March 1978 tv program called "Aan de Grenzen" (On the Borders) by Veronica tv presenter Tineke Vos, about Børge Ring's animation and Jazz music, and his wife Joanika's scuptures. It presented a film that was just finished called "Oh My Darling" before it went across the globe, winning the Jury Prize in Cannes and an Oscar nomination, to boot.

This was the very first time I heard of Børge as animator/film maker. Previously, I only knew that he drew a comic strip "Distel" for the magazine "Sjors." At the end of the program it listed among other things the town where Børge lived then, and to my surprise, it was only some three miles away from where I (then a 16 years old High School kid) lived, so I boldly called him up and asked if I could meet him, wanting to learn all I could about animation.

[From Wikipedia: "Makin' Whoopee!" is a jazz/blues song, first popularized by Eddie Cantor in the 1928 musical Whoopee!. Walter Donaldson wrote the music and Gus Kahn the lyrics for the song as well as for the entire musical.]
This is the beginning of the song, 58 seconds. Tineke asks Børge: "What do all Jazz musicians have in common?" to which he answers "Love for Jazz."

Børge Ring is 90 today!

A Very Happy Birthday, Børge!
In Holland and Denmark, it just turned Thursday February 17th 2011, the 90th birthday of my old mentor Børge Ring. He isn't smiling for the picture: the little guilded man he is holding is really heavy!

As film maker, Børge created (among numerous other things) the short films "Oh My Darling," "Anna & Bella" and "Run of the Mill" as well as the animated series "Anton." As jazz musician he played guitar and bass with famous bands like Leo Mathisen and Svend Asmussen, just to name a few. A little paragraph like this cannot do Børge justice in either field, as he has filled them both since the late 1930s! In 1952 he moved to Holland to work for the Marten Toonder Studios; after 20 years there he went freelance. Now turning 90, Børge slowed down, but his mind is still one of the sharpest around!

Above picture I took a few days ago, to be precise last Sunday, when I visited Børge in his and his wife Joanika's home in Holland, chewing the fat for too few hours. Børge told me the great news that he currently has the Academy Award "on loan," won for his film "Anna & Bella," on which I, too, wore many hats, including as editor, assistant director, cel painter and doing some animation, as well.

I am thus also proud to have a picture of the three of us together, after all these many years: the film had its first screening in August 1984 in the Dutch city of Haarlem during an intermission in the wonderful program presented by the great Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. I had been in Denmark only two weeks working on the feature film Valhalla when I had to come back to Holland for the proceedings I had organized. It gave me great pleasure to be able to invite Børge to peruse the musea of Amsterdam with Frank and Ollie.
Of course it was Børge who first introduced me to the Valhalla studio, which was the reason I moved to Denmark in the first place...

Funnily enough, in his native Denmark, Børge is mainly known as bass player. Here he had his beginnings with Mathiesen and Asmussen. But in Holland, he is the Oscar-winning film maker, decorated by the Dutch queen for his work in animation. Just few months ago, Børge had his memoirs published, thus far only in Danish. Will we see an English version soon?