About Lolee Aries: Death doesn't have to be so sad. Gone but not forgotten - is not gone.
I've been trying to write something to convey my deep sadness for our loss of one of the most wonderful people I've ever known. Lolee Aries passed away on Tuesday, July 10th, 2018 (born: Apr 18, 1957) from complications of lymphoma. She recently retired from an amazingly productive and treasured career in the Animation industry, starting out as a "tea girl" in one of the world leading ...cartoon studios of Asia, Cuckoo's Nest/Wang Film.
Founded with Bill Hanna of legendary Hanna-Barbera, Cuckoo's Nest animated so many of the Saturday morning Cartoons my generation grew up on - shipping 35mm negative and workprint to the San Fernando Valley factory so another episode of Scooby Do Where are You could be broadcast to an American audience of kids huddled every Saturday morning in front of an actual cathode ray tube TV set. Lolee came here with her husband to be, overseas animation supervisor Peter Aries, at the young age of 25, after rising to the position of editor in the thousand employee toon palace in Asia.
We met when she came to work for me/with me at Film Roman in 1989, three years after arriving here in Los Angeles from Taiwan, first as an associate producer on Garfield & Friends and Bobby's World - and then as our Studio head of production, also overseeing production on the Simpsons and King of the Hill, as well as a Tom & Jerry Movie, creatively supervised by the spry, if not lecherous - in a nice way (pre-pre-pre #metoo) Joseph Barbera, for Ted Turner, who had bought the MGM Library.
Lolee had no biological children, but treated her husband Peter’s two kids as her own, not to mention the 450 "kids" populating the animation desks at the studio in North Hollywood, and then on to Nickelodeons shop for 4 years in charge of the animation crew making SpongeBob Square Pants, and then back with me and my partners Mike & Liz Young and the 150 artists here in Woodland Hills. Lolee cared for me, you, my kids, your kids - whoever needed help, whatever the help that was needed, any time - any place. Rolling up her sleeves (literally) to do the critical and painstaking job of animation checking - on the last half of 3,000 feet of models, storyboards, and exposure sheets before it could be shipped off to Taiwan or Korea for animation, backgrounds, ink & paint and camera, to make sure the 35 mm film would be shipped back in time so we could meet our delivery to Miramax, who was distributing the film. And then when finished, Lolee would get back to her VP of Production office to help a producer prep a voice over recording for the first episode of Bobby's World or decorating a storyboard artists office with balloons for the surprise birthday celebration in the morning.
She was a caring mother to us all - and a workhorse for the production slate. As a born and raised Buddhist, she also had an organic sense of mindfulness that serves me today in dealing with the challenges of a stressful life in the LA entertainment business. She touched so many lives and offered a hand or a shoulder or a full vocabulary of Mandarin, which allowed us to create and produce Hero:108 for Cartoon Network in 2008, delivered to 160 countries, based on a 14th Century Chinese novel. The series was collaboratively co-produced with the Taiwanese creative team she and I had worked with 20 years earlier at Cuckoo's Nest on number one rated Garfield & Friends for CBS. In 2006, our Skyped story and production meetings were half in English and half in Mandarin, thanks to the brilliant cultural and language translation skills of Leetsu! (Lolee's Chinese name).
The animation business 30 years ago, had a lot of kind and generous, down to earth professionals, who were driven by their pride and passion for quality filmmaking and the art and craft of animation. We didn’t have the ego chasing, domineering big shots found in the big budget higher stakes arena of Hollywood's motion pictures or primetime television segments of the business. Of course, the irony is that it is no longer the case. In fact, animation is the hub to most of the highest grossing films and revenue drivers for much of the global entertainment business. Lolee's expertise and strengths as an executive and animation producer – as well as a quality human being – were sometimes underestimated in the Hollywood looks-centric industry. But those of us lucky enough to have her on our team counted her as sort of a secret weapon. She quietly receded into the background, finishing work on Splash and Lionsgate modest hit animated feature film Norm of the North. Her spirit remains an active part of our local 839 animation community and a mindful universe of the knowers. She is not gone, just not connected to skype or available for a walk over to Starbucks. We loved you Lolee. We love you Lolee. Please register a "like" to let Lolee and everyone else see how truly "connected" to the Universe this Chinese immigrant still is...just as one prong of her footprint on this planet - from Taipei, Taiwan to Woodland Hills, California.