Accomplished animator, VFX artist and musician “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow has passed away at the age of 72. In addition to animating on the classic Art Clokey shows Gumby and Davey and Goliath, and George Pal’s The Puppetoon Movie, he created stop-motion effects for the 1974 series Land of the Lost and feature films including The Terminator, RoboCop 2 and Army of Darkness. More recently, he worked on 3D animation for the Disney movie Holes. He died Saturday, Jan. 6 at a Petaluma, Calif. convalescent home near the nursing facility where he had been living with Alzheimer’s disease.
As a musician, Kleinow wrote and performed the theme music for Gumby, but many will remember him as one of the original members of the country-rock band Flying Burrito Brothers. The steel guitar prodigy formed the group with Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons of The Byrds in 1968 and wnet on to enjoy a musical career that spanned six decades, inspiring such groups as the Eagles, the Steve Miller Band and Poco. He also worked as a session musician for a number of years, recording with the likes of John Lennon, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, the Bee Gees and Sly and the Family Stone. In 2000, he formed the band Burrito Express, which he fronted before being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
Kleinow received an Emmy award in 1983 for his work on the miniseries The Winds of War. He is survived by his wife of 54 years, Ernestine, his daughters Anita and Tammy, and three sons, Martin, Aaron and Cosmo. Plans for a memorial service to be held in Joshua Tree later this month are pending.
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