Anker Roepstorff

(1910-1992)

Viggo Anker Roepstorff was born 8 January 1910 in Maribo on the island of Lolland in south Denmark, the son of Axel Victor Roepstorff and his wife Anne Laura Johanne. When he was thirteen the family moved to Copenhagen. After leaving school he went to work as a trainee in an export company.

An encounter with fellow Jazz enthusiast Jørgen Myller in a Copenhagen record shop led to him becoming employed by Myller's animation company the Animated Cartoon Compagny as a scriptwriter and trainee inbetweener. They were joined by trainee Henning Dahl Mikkelsen, a talented young designer and cartoonist who quickly took to animation. The company was immediately approached by adverting agencies and made a range of commercial cartoons.

Their ultimate goal, however, was to make entertainment shorts, and they were greatly influenced by the American cartoons, particularly those of Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising, who had left Disney's in 1927, when Charles Mintz took over Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and subsequently created the Bosko series for Leon Schlesinger's Looney Tunes.

The Danish studio's first entertainment cartoon, Et bankkup (A Bank Robbery) released in February 1934, featured a black-and-white character who was virtually Bosko's double. Bosko was meant to be an African American youth, but his design was basically Mickey Mouse without the ears – a standard black and white cartoon character. Myller's character was called Columbus and in the film he is a policeman, chasing the bank robber Sugar Foot Bill by riding a cow on roller skates. Jazz musicians Erik Kragh and Leo Mathiesen supplied the music and the voices, and the film was made in English for international sales. It made a loss, however, and finance for the proposed series could not be secured.

While the fim was in production Anker Roepstorff had scripted his idea for a short cartoon burlesque of Carmen. Myller thought that as a Danish studio they should make a version of a Hans Christian Andersen story, and selected The Tinder Box. Character models (and possibly layouts) for this were drawn up, but there was no money for either project to go into full production and the studio concentrated on its advertising work.

Later in 1934 Myller left Copenhagen for London, and a few days later Roepstorff and Mikkelsen received a letter telling them that he was now working for a new cartoon studio, British Utility Films, with animator Sid Griffiths, and urging them to close the Copenhagen studio and come and join him.

The three Danes worked on advertising films for British Utility Films until 1935, when wealthy producer Archibald Nettleford set up a new studio, Anglia Films to be headed by veteran animator Anson Dyer. Dyer had continued to make films using cutout animation, but the new company was to make fully animated cel cartoons, in colour, both for advertising and entertainment films, and Griffiths and the Danes were recruited to provide the animation. The colour system to be used was the two-colour Dunningcolor process. The studio was situated in Jermyn Street, in the well-to-do St James's area of London.

Dyer now took the roll of producer, with Griffiths directing and the Danes providing the design and animation. Roepstorff presented Dyer with the script for Carmen and Dyer agreed to put it into production. However, the subsequent idea of basing a cartoon on Stanley Holloway's comic monologue Old Sam (aka Pick Oop Tha' Musket) seemed more likely to be a success, and took priority when it came to releasing the films. Sam and his Musket premiered at ther Rialto, Coventry Street, on 8 November 1935, with the second in the proposed Sam Small series already in production, and Carmen was finally released along with this film, 'Alt! 'Oo Goes Theer? in April 1936.

Four more Sam Small cartoons followed – Sam's Medal, Beat the Retreat, Drummed Out and Three Ha'pence a Foot (Sam's charge for timber when Noah builds his Ark in Yorkshire!) – as well as the first of a planned series based on Holloway's other famous monologue, The Lion and Albert, and the studio was also making advertising films for various clients.

Despite their popularity the entertainment films were not making a profit, and Nettlefold's accountants advised him to cut his losses. The Danes were getting homesick and Roepstorff returned to Denmark during the spring of 1937. His letter of recommendation (April 8, 1937) reads:

To whom it may concern.

Mr. Anker Roepstorff has been in my employ for the past two years, and I have found him most satisfactory from every point of view.
His English is perfect and I only regret that he is leaving me of his own accord.

Anglia Films Ltd.
E. Anson Dyer
Managing Director.

Back in Copenhagen Roepstorff was hired as a guide at the Carlsberg brewery. In October 1938 he rejoined Jørgen Myller who was now heading a cartoon studio for the advertising film company Gutenberghus Reklamebureau, employing Mikkelsen as animator, where Roepstorff worked both as scriptwriter and inbetweener, leaving to return to his Carlsberg guide job for the summer of 1939. In 1940 he worked for Myller and Mikkelsen again, at the studio which had now been taken over by German film company Vepro.

On 16 April 1942 Anker Roepstorff married Inge Caroc.

Vepro closed in September 1942 and Roepstorff went to work as a state office assistant. He continued to write scripts for cartoons on the side, particularly for Mikkelsen, who was working freelance for various advertising agencies. In 1944 he wrote the script for Dahl Mikkelsen's first entertainment cartoon, Ferd'nand på fisketur (Ferd'nand's fishing trip), featuring Mik's popular comic strip creation. He also provided occasional ideas for the Ferd'nand strip.

In 1947 Anker Roepstorff became an inspector at the Carlsberg brewery, and also worked in their advertising and visiting department, acting as a guide for VIP guests. He drew many caricatures of celebrity guests and other drawings for the Carlsberg Magazine, which he also co-edited. He also submitted cartoons to other publications, signing them -R or -Robby.

In later life Anker Roepstorff developed Parkinson's disease. He died in the Gentofte suburb of Copenhagen on September 30, 1992, aged 82.

Filmography (UK productions only)

Links to Other Sites

DANSK TEGNEFILMS HISTORIE Anker Roepstorff Biography page on the Danish site giving a history of Danish animation, by animator and historian Harry Rasmussen.

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