Alan White Williams

Alan Williams was born on July 11th, 1940, in Yonkers, New York. He was the third in the family of four born to Oscar M. and Evelyn H. Williams. He had two older brothers, Fred, and Oscar Jr. and one younger sister, Jane. He lived in Yonkers until 1950 when the family moved to Mount Vernon, New York. He attended P.S. #12 elementary school in Yonkers and completed elementary school in Mount Vernon. Next, he attended Nichols Jr. High School in Mount Vernon and after graduation went on to attend Edison Technical & Vocational High School. He graduated from Edison in 1958. While attending Edison he became interested in art and had three straight years of four periods of art per day. His art teacher Mr. Victor Milansi, saw a lot of potential in Alan and encouraged him to go on to art school. After graduation in 1958, Allan enrolled in The School of Visual Arts in New York city and graduated from that school in 1961. While at the school of visual arts, Alan found his true talent after taking an airbrush course in illustration rendering and photo retouching. He soon excelled his classmates and went on after graduation to a career of photo retouching. His first job was with Hearst Magazines in New York City. He also started doing free-lance work for various clients including Columbia Records which has now evolved into Sony Records.

In 1963, Alan decided he wanted to see some of this beautiful country and motored west on Route 66 to Los Angeles, California stopping at as many places as he could along the way, including Las Vegas, Nevada, arriving in Los Angeles in September 1963 with $100.00 in his pocket. He soon found a position as retouch artist with the Paul Zammit Studio in Hollywood and worked there for four years before starting his own with Ted Laskas, also a former employee of Paul Zammit Studio. The partnership only lasted for one year and Alan went on to open his sole proprietor studio on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles. While he was working for Paul Zammit he met and fell in love with Julie Samons who was a ballroom dance instructor and after a whirlwind courtship they were married in Encino, California on June 15, 164. Julie had come from Martin, Kentucky about the same time Alan came from New York. Obviously, this was a marriage made in heaven. Alan and Julie had three wonderful children, six beautiful grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. The oldest of their three children Deborah Jean, married James “Mike” Rupel. Their children are Christopher, Matthew, and Rebecca. The next is Michelle Leigh, who married Ron Ravens, their children are Brandon and Tessa. The youngest of Alan and Julie’s children is David Alan, who married Amber McOmber, their daughter’s name is Jade Rose Williams.

After working on his own for two years, Alan and Paul Zammit got together again and formed a corporation with Alan as president. This relationship lasted for three years until 1973 and was very successful, but Alan liked to make his own decisions without having to compromise, so off he went and opened his own studio again, which went for more than 30 years. During this time, he worked for many prominent movie studios, record companies, advertising agencies, and corporations. In 1989 the art industry was evolving into a computer- based system of doing the artwork. Alan was the first or second retouch artist in Los Angeles to convert to doing the artwork on the computer. The early days of computer retouching were very difficult, learning a completely new way of doing the art. The only similarities were the names of the tools used in the conventional retouching and computer retouching, the airbrush versus the electronic airbrush. Along with his son-in-law, Mike Rupel who worked with Alan for 12 years and his son David who worked with Alan for six years they mastered the hardware and software technology to become a major studio in the industry.

Alan made the confession that Jesus Christ is the Lord and is the Son of God and was baptized into the Christ on December 23, 1973 at the Van Nuys Church of Christ by Lonnie Branham, minister at the time. There wasn’t a dry eye in the church that day because Alan was such a stubborn one, not wanting to acknowledge that God is the one in control of all things. He later went on to be nominated as a deacon in the church and served at Van Nuys for 9 years in that office. Later after the family moved from Northridge, California in the San Fernando Valley to Agoura Hills in the Conejo Valley, Alan, Julie, Michelle, and David attended the Conejo Church of Christ. Again, Alan was nominated for the church office of deacon and served for three years until moving once again to Thousand Oaks, California. Alan and Julie placed their membership then with the Simi Church of Christ and again Alan was called to serve the Lord in 2002 as a deacon. Alan and Julie then moved to Moorpark, California in Ventura County in December 2002. After serving as a deacon for two and one-half years, Alan was nominated to serve as an elder for the Simi church of Christ in June 2005. They moved one last time to Thousand Oaks, California in November 2010, to downsize to a condominium.

Alan said that he owes his faith and belied in Jesus Christ and His church to his wife Julie who was raised in the faith and exposed Alan to the truth and was the main reason he obeyed the Gospel. All three of their children and their spouses have been baptized into Christ. Three of their grandchildren has also been baptized. Praise God for intervening in the lives of the children, their mates, and the grandchildren.

Alan thanks his loving wife Julie for all the wonderful years of marriage that they had together. With that she had to put up with being married to such an opinioned and stubborn individual. He was so proud of all his children. First for obeying the Gospel, and second for their families. They have all accomplished much more than most families. Deborah finishing her college education in her thirties to get her teaching degree. Michelle for having her own business in the hair dressing salon industry. David for having learned from Alan how to be an artist and then getting so good at the computer that he in turn would teach his dad all the latest techniques so that “pops’ could keep up with the rapidly changing technology. The student teaching the master and going on to having his own major art studio in Hollywood.

Alan loved God and God’s family, the Church. He loved his own family and placed his family’s welfare and happiness above all other things in this world. May God have a place prepared for Alan that has been promised to all that remain faithful to the end. In Jesus name, Amen.