More On My Book
The book is a large format, 8 ½ by 11 inches, and about an inch thick. You can get it in hardcover or softcover, color or black and white. There are 500 pages, but it’s a fast read because every page is filled with one or more of the 1,000 pictures that illustrate it. Please contact me with any questions you may have.
Book Signings and Renée Sightings
ANIMATEDUCATED: November 30, 2022
On November 30 Renée did a fun interview with Jim Richardson for his YouTube channel ANIMATEDUCATED. You can view it here.
Gordon R. Howard Museum, Burbank: September 10, 2022
In front of a large audience in the auditorium of the fabulous Gordon Howard Museum, Renée presented a lively, heartfelt slide show called To Burbank with Love. You can view the PowerPoint slides (Part 1 here and Part 2 here).
The response was extremely gratifying as guests lingered for refreshments, browsed the large display of memorabilia, and enjoyed nostalgia time with Renée as she signed copies of her book. The entire event, produced by Gretchen Van Tassel and the Burbank Historical Society, was a great success. The program was filled with laughs and poignant moments as Renée told stories of growing up in Burbank surrounded by exhibits that were part of her life. Here are a few:
The Hollywood Hills that hide the glitz and glamor of Tinsel Town on the “right” side of the Hollywood Sign
Lockheed, home of the war planes that flew over the house as the Patin family lived through World War II on the home front.
Girl Scout uniforms like those proudly worn at the long-gone Abraham Lincoln School
Miss Burbank, Mary Frances Reynolds, later Debbie, the teen icon all the girls wanted to be
A telephone booth from which Renée would call to beg to an extension on a date at the Cornell theater
California Institute of the Arts: June 25, 2022
Author Renée Patin Farrington shared a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation about her father, Ray Patin, at the annual meeting of the invite-only Hyperion Historical Alliance (HHA) on June 25. The non-profit membership association consists of private scholars, academics, archivists, artists, and legacy members who work both inside and outside The Walt Disney Company to preserve documents, oral history, and artwork pertaining to all aspects of The Walt Disney Company. About 80 audience members heard about animator Ray Patin’s contribution to animation history, both at Disney, Warner Bros., Ub Iwerks, Harmon Ising, Charles Mintz and later, his own animation production company, Ray Patin Productions. He was president of the Screen Cartoonists Guild and Commercial Film Producers Association, winner of the Art Directors Club Gold Medal and numerous other animation awards and a voting member of The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Ray’s career features prominently in Renée’s memoir, In the Shadow of the Sign.
The presentation was delayed from 2019 due to Covid-19. Movies that her father took on his 8 mm camera played at lunchtime. They included animators at work and play taken at the original Hyperion Studio, the animator’s 1941 strike against Disney, Renée as a child riding the life-size railway of Ward Kimball, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men, and the Norconian Field Day, an off-site celebration for employees after the success of Snow White.
For more about Ray Patin,
Please click here for part 1 and here for part 2 of the PowerPoint.
Here are a few images of Renée speaking in front of the invite-only Hyperion Historical Alliance group on June 25 at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), the private art university in Santa Clarita, CA founded by Walt and Roy Disney, and others in 1961.
Sedona Public Library: March 3, 2022
Who doesn’t like to hear stories about Disney and Hollywood? Author Renée Patin Farrington and Moderator/Producer Gretchen Van Tassel shared a Powerpoint presentation sharing Disney and Hollywood highlights from the book among other stories. They also included videos made from Ray Patin’s 8 mm movie footage (some over 80 years old). Around the room was displayed memorabilia from Renée’s father’s career to delve into while the author ended the event with a book-signing. Sometimes you have to start small to create something big. Renée and Gretchen found this to be true during the whole publishing journey.
If you wish to view the PowerPoint, please click here.
Carmel Crossroads River House Books: January 9, 2022
River House Books at the Crossroads in Carmel hosted Renée’s book signing! Thanks to all who came by to get their book signed or to enjoy the lively presentation. Around the venue were original archival artifacts that inspired the author and are featured prominently in the book.
To view the PowerPoint from the book-signing click here.
Downtown Book and Sound: November 27, 2021
Downtown Book and Sound in Oldtown Salinas hosted an event for the book on November 27, 2021. Gary Bacon, an avid Disneyana collector, was dressed head to toe in Donald Duck attire.
Read All About It!
In the Loop: May 2022
The Red Rocks News: March 2022
The Pine Cone: February 4, 2022
Monterey Herald: November 28, 2021
Local books: Daughter of Disney artist emerges from behind the scenes
By LISA CRAWFORD WATSON | newsroom@montereyherald.com |
PUBLISHED: November 28, 2021 at 7:58 a.m. | UPDATED: November 28, 2021 at 11:35 a.m.
Salinas Californian: November 5, 2021
Imagine my excitement when I saw this front page, above-the fold article in the Salinas Californian!
For many of us, a Disney animated movie is one of the first films we can recall watching and loving. For local author and former toy executive Renée Farrington, Disney was a lifestyle.
Her father, Ray Patin, was an animator at the company in the 1940s. If you’ve seen an early Donald Duck drawing, it’s quite possible you’ve seen his work. Patin also did a series with Life magazine in which he placed the character in to famous works of art, such as a Rembrandt.
Farrington wrote a book about her life growing up in Hollywood, or “La La Land,” as she calls to it. The Monterey County woman said the book's title “In the Shadow of the Sign” doesn’t express her full feelings about her childhood.
“We weren’t second best at all,” she said. “We had was something very, very special just where we were and really there was never a shadow from the sign.”
Her book contains cartoons from Patin's life and gave her an opportunity to connect with her father and realize the influence he had on her.
During the process of writing and researching, she looked through some of her father’s old work and even found cartoon love letters he had written to her mother, work she had never seen before.
“Sometimes it felt like my father was talking to me and my mother too,” Farrington said. “I could understand, which very few people have the opportunity to do, my father’s courtship and I could understand their marriage and how it changed throughout the years in the way he did his cartoons and love letters.”
Farrington’s tale takes the reader through her childhood, to the Disney strike of 1941, all the way to sailing the world with her former husband. It’s an inside look into a piece of the golden era of Hollywood some might not have seen before.
In her author photo, Farrington’s wearing a shirt with the words “I don’t want to grow up” written in the Disney font. This shirt isn’t about a lack of responsibility but rather keeping that sense of childlike wonder throughout her life.
Now, at around 80, she still has it.
“The joy that children get out of things I think is lost when we become adults,” Farrington said.
She credits her parents for having that belief as well. While her father was an animator, her mother was an artist specializing in fantasy.
“His influence on me was, first of all, looking at life…with a clear lens the way children do and sense of humor,” she said. “I realized after writing it that being an artist for Walt Disney was something that was really magical, to have that point of view that you get from doing that.”
If you want to speak with her in person, she will be having an event at the Downtown Book & Sound in Oldtown Salinas on Nov. 27 at 3 p.m.
Angelica Cabral is a journalist and podcaster for The Californian covering a wide variety of topics from movies filmed in Monterey County to how much political candidates have fundraised. Have a tip for an interesting story? Email her at acabral@gannett.com. You can also follow her on Twitter @avcabral97