Emery Hawkins was born in Jerome, Arizona to a father who was a all-round cowboy for two years and to a mother who was a painter.
He started drawing when he was two years old and his family had a lot of history with artistic careers, including his aunts.
Initially going back to Mintz' Studio (now renamed Screen Gems), he would later move to Walter Lantz Productions, where he would co-redesign their flagship character Woody Woodpecker with Art Heinemann.
[3][4] Later in mid-1946 he would move to Warner Bros. Cartoons to animator for Arthur Davis, Robert McKimson, Chuck Jones, and Friz Freleng up until 1950.
There he worked on the Greedy scene in Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure with assistant animator Dan Haskett (who disliked the job),[7] as well as animating The Thief and the Cobbler, that latter which he worked with other colleagues he knew in the industry, such as Ken Harris and Grim Natwick.