What if Relativity Media was founded in 1925?/Warren Nehrebecki

Warren Nehrebecki (1908-2001) was a Polish-American animator and producer, who is best known for making cartoons at various Poverty Row studios between 1929 and 1950.

He later studied in New York and London, born in Chicago to Polish immigrants. In 1929, he started his animation career at Sono Art-World Wide Pictures, producing over 150 cartoons in a little over two years. In 1936, he formed his own studio, Warren Nehrebecki Productions, in Hollywood, and produced over 1,000 cartoons, until its closure in 1950.

His first successful work, The Love of Cats, released in 1929, was the first ever cartoon to get an Academy Award. It was a success for him and his studio, and it is still one of the most reproduced and watched cartoons of all time.

Biography
Nehrebecki spent his childhood in Chicago, and entered the film industry in 1925 when he was 17. He began working at Tiffany Pictures, but soon shifted to Sono Art-World Wide Pictures, where he worked for three years. Later, he moved to Republic Pictures, and directed over 150 animated cartoons for producer William Yantsashvili. He worked at Republic Pictures until 1936, before he set up his own studio, Warren Nehrebecki Productions, and entered a distribution partnership with Grand National Pictures. Due to this, Nehrebecki invented Anirox, a xerox processing system which generated one-quarter of his animated films way better than any other American film studio.

Nevertheless, Nehrebecki was so successful, that he was able to create his own cartoon series, starring his first character, Beanie Bear. Inspired by Burt Gillett's style, and Walt Disney's classic cartoons, Beanie Bear was an instant sensation in the Poverty Row industry, starring in over 400 cartoons. However, this series was a success until 1950, when it was sold entirely to Relativity Pictures, and he retired from his studio, due to the closure of Eagle-Lion Films, the studio's last distributor.

Although he went on to a successful career as a cameraman and editor, he never made another animated film. He died in 2001, at age 92, of a heart attack.