American director
Son of actor/writer Arthur Rankin.
Grandson of Harry Davenport and Phyllis Franklin. Great-grandson of McKee Rankin. Half-nephew of Dorothy Davenport and Wallace Reid , half-cousin of Wallace Reid Jr..
Nephew of Kate Davenport , Ann Davenport, and first cousin of Dirk Wayne Summers.
With Jules Bass , produced and directed The Hobbit and The Return of the King , both of which were later remade as live-action films by Peter Jackson. Both films also feature some casting similarities. Rankin and Bass hired Orson Bean to be the voice of Bilbo, and later Frodo as well. The older Bilbo in Jacksons film is played by Ian Holm , largely on account of his having played Frodo in the BBC Radio version. The three trolls in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey are all voiced by actors who also play one of the dwarves. Rankin and Basss version did the same, although the actors do not play the same dwarves in both versions.
Retired, living on Harrington Sound, Bermuda.
Survived by his wife Olga and sons Todd and Gardner.
He started out as an art director at ABC in the late 1940s, painting sets and doing graphic design.
In all our pictures, we had an antagonist who becomes the good guy, and,the underdog fulfills his quest. .
