Michael Maltese, an unsung hero of animation, was born to Italian immigrant parents and learned his craft at the National Academy of Design in New York.
He began his career in animation in 1935, working on Betty Boop cartoons for Max Fleischer as an opaquer and assistant animator.
After two years, he moved to the West Coast and joined Leon Schlesinger's studio at Warner Brothers, where he became an integral member of the story department by August 1939.
Maltese was a zany humorist, responsible for many innovative Looney Tunes in-jokes and gags, especially those involving the Acme company.
As a character designer, he and Chuck Jones created Pepe Le Pew, Yosemite Sam, and the Road Runner.
Maltese was instrumental in the evolution of the Road Runner/Coyote cartoons, having devised the concept of the 'ultimate chase'.
He also co-created Michigan J. Frog, a top-hatted vaudevillian, for the cartoon One Froggy Evening.
In 1958, Maltese left Warner Brothers to work for Hanna-Barbera, where he was head of the story department and wrote a half-hour episode each week.
He also worked on comic book stories for various publishers, including Sangor, Dell, and Western Publishing.
Maltese appeared as a real-life security guard in You Ought to Be in Pictures, chasing an animated Porky Pig around the studio lot.
He never won an Oscar, but was honored with a Winsor McKay Award for lifetime achievement in animation three years after his retirement in 1973.
Warner Brothers paid tribute to Maltese with a Sylvester & Tweetie cartoon, The Maltese Canary, in 1995.
