Hollywood mourns cartoon legend

Jones made more than 300 cartoons

Oscar-winning cartoon animator Chuck Jones, who brought to life a host of cartoon characters including Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, has died in California of heart failure.

He was 89.

A family statement said that Mr Jones' wife Marian was at his side in their home in the town of Corona del Mar when he died.

Carrot-chomping Bugs Bunny was his most famous character

He made more than 300 cartoons and won three Oscars for his work as director in the Looney Tunes stable.

In 1996 he was awarded an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in the field of animation.

Born in 1912 in Spokane, Washington state, Chuck Jones' first experiences of Hollywood were as a child actor in silent films.

After attending art school, he found his first job as an animator in the studio of former Disney cartoonist Ubbe Iwerks.

Daffy Duck was never happy in Bugs' shadow

However it was his move in 1936 to fellow animator Leon Schlesinger's studio, later bought by Warner Bros, that proved to be the highlight of his career.

During the so-called "Golden Age" of animation in the 1930s and 1940s, he helped develop such well-known characters as Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny.

He also created his own group of distinctive characters, including the hapless Wile E Coyote and his tormentor Road Runner.

Jones' creations got the postal service stamp of approval

In contrast to the often sentimental world of Disney, Jones' cartoons gave a wit and dark humour to their two-dimensional characters, which were often aimed as much at adults as they were at children.

Following the closure of Warner Bros' animation studio in 1962, Jones moved to MGM Studios where he brought his now trademark wit to their Tom and Jerry cartoons and directed the animation short The Dot and the Line, for which he won an Oscar.

Later he established his own production company and went into business selling images from the cartoons he had created.

He is survived by his wife, daughter Linda, three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.