Line #25 UsefulNotes/TheWaltDisneyFamilyAndTheNineOldMen


1	We all love Creator/{{Disney}}'s enormous selection of classic films and characters, but without these people, we might not have ever gotten all of those classics made! Here are some of the earliest and most veritable of all the Disney Staff. All of the [[Creator/DisneysNineOldMen Nine Old Men]] are Disney Legends.
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3	'''The Walt Disney Family and the Nine Old Men'''
4	!!The Disney family and their closest associates:
5	[[index]]
6	* [[Creator/WaltDisney Walter Elias Disney]] (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966): The man himself, co-founder of the company, co-creator of Mickey Mouse, and creator of Disneyland. While Walt didn't really draw anything after Mickey Mouse's creation, he was a director of many shorts. He stopped for a few years, did a brief return to directing in 1935 with ''The Golden Touch'' and loathed that short so much that he never directed another cartoon again. He was a talented storyteller, having a key role in a lot of the studio's early animated films, though he took on more the role as a businessman over the years until he died of lung cancer in December 1966 (he died the day after one of his favorite voice actresses, Verna Felton, died herself), with ''WesternAnimation/TheJungleBook1967'' being the final Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon film he fully supervised and ''The Happiest Millionaire'' being the final film to involve him in some degree (he dealt with ''WesternAnimation/TheRescuers'' to a minimal degree and the last film to have any kind of input from Walt was ''WesternAnimation/TheAristocats'', which he greenlit the production of, plus he supervised part of what became ''WesternAnimation/TheManyAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh''). His death left the company without a strong direction and declining success until the 1984 management shift.
7	[[/index]]
8	* Roy Oliver Disney (June 24, 1893 – December 20, 1971): Walt's older brother and company co-founder. While Walt was the creative one, Roy ran the business side and remained Chairman, CEO, and President of the company until his death in 1971. A hardworking man, he cancelled his retirement to oversee Ride/WaltDisneyWorld's completion, dedicating it to his late brother.
9	* '''''Edna Francis Disney''''' (January 16, 1890 - December 18, 1984): Wife of Roy O. Disney, a source of support for the Disney family, company, and employees.
10	* '''''Lillian Disney''''' (February 15, 1899 – December 16, 1997): Walt's wife. She worked as an inker and secretary in the company's early days, acting as a conservative foil to her husband's daring. Following Walt's death, she worked along Roy to complete Walt Disney World, and funded [=CalArts=] too. Although she died in 1997, Lillian's last gift was The Walt Disney Concert Hall.
11	* Diane Disney Miller (December 18, 1933 – November 19, 2013): Walt's first daughter. While never an employee of her dad's company, she had close links to the company, opening the family museum in San Francisco. She died in 2013, and has a dedication to her in ''Film/SavingMrBanks'' and a special thanks credit in Creator/{{Pixar}}'s ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut''.
12	* Sharon Mae Lund Disney (December 31, 1936 – February 16, 1993): Walt's second daughter, adopted due to Lillian's difficulty with childbirth. Her husband Bill Lund had helped identify a suitable place to build Walt Disney World in Orlando. She died in 1993.
13	* Joanna Miller: Granddaughter of Walt Disney.
14	* Ronald William Miller (April 17, 1933 - February 9, 2019): Diane's husband. He was a producer and crewmember on several films, and became the boss of Disney throughout most of their Dark Years (pecifically from 1971 to 1984). He did start up the Disney Channel and after a few darker than normal Disney features, founded Creator/TouchstonePictures to make PG-13 and R rated films, the first of which was Creator/RonHoward's, ''Film/{{Splash}}'', which helped toward ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989''. This wasn't enough when an attempted corporate raid led to stockholders and Roy E. Disney ousting him and replacing him with Michael Eisner, and Miller retired. He has recently been given a special thanks credit on 2015's ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'', though, and is one of at least two Disney alumni to operate a California winery (the other being John Lasseter); his winery is the Silverado vineyards.
15	* '''Roy Edward Disney''' (January 10, 1930 – December 16, 2009): Roy's son and Walt's nephew. He spent much of his life in Disney as a writer, editor, producer, and eventually executive on the board. He ousted Ron Miller to save the company, bringing Michael Eisner (who brought Jeffrey Katzenberg with him) and Frank Wells to shake things up. During the Disney Renaissance, he became head of the animation department. He and Eisner fell out due to the latter's ExecutiveMeddling and ousted Eisner, too. He returned to the company in 2005 as Director Emeritus until his death in 2009. He is the last of the Disney family to be directly involved with the company, as the rest of Disney's family would remain distant from the company.
16	[[index]]
17	* '''Creator/DisneysNineOldMen''': Disney's most notable animators who invented and perfected the animation style and techniques that made Disney a household name. They are:
18	** [[/index]]'''''Eric Larson''''' (September 3, 1905 – October 25, 1988): Joined Disney in 1933 as an assistant to Ham Luske, and animated a lot of the animal characters in Disney's animated films, but he did animate ''WesternAnimation/{{Cinderella}}''. Known for his easygoing disposition, Larson eventually became the head of the animation training program at [=CalArts=] (the final film on which he contributed animation would be ''WesternAnimation/{{Robin Hood\|1973}}'') and mentored or hired a multitude of Disney's most prominent '90s animators. He was notably the only one of the Nine Old Men to still be employed at the studio when the 1984 Management Shift happened, forming the studio hierarchy and personnel that would subsequently spearhead the Disney Renaissance. Larson retired in 1986, but died in 1988; he was last credited on ''WesternAnimation/TheGreatMouseDetective'' as an "animation consultant".
19	** '''Creator/FrankThomas''' (September 5, 1912 – September 8, 2004): Joined the studio in 1934 as an assistant to squash-and-stretch pioneer Creator/FredMoore and specialized in animating {{Tearjerker}} scenes such as Snow White in the glass coffin as well as [[WesternAnimation/TheJungleBook1967 Baloo coming to grips and having to tell Mowgli to go to the man village when he hears Shere Khan is in the picture.]] He joined World War II, but returned and animated tense scenes such as [[WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfIchabodAndMrToad Ichabod Crane's ride before encountering the Headless Horseman]]. Also animated the infamous Lady Tremaine in ''Cinderella'', the [[TropeNamer Trope Naming]] SpaghettiKiss in ''WesternAnimation/LadyAndTheTramp'', the three fairies in ''Sleeping Beauty'', WesternAnimation/{{Robin Hood\|1973}} in disguise, and the majority of Bernard and Bianca in ''WesternAnimation/TheRescuers'', of which he thought highly. He retired during production of ''The Fox and the Hound'' in 1978, and provided commentary on these movies and cameos in others such as ''WesternAnimation/TheIronGiant'' [[note]] A Warner Bros. film! [[/note]] and ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' alongside best friend Ollie Johnston, but he passed away in 2004.
20	** '''''John Lounsbery''''' (March 9, 1911 – February 13, 1976): Originally an assistant to Norm Ferguson in the late '30s, he was first credited with animating Honest John and Gideon in ''WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}}'' and animated a handful of bit characters in Disney movies such as Ben Ali Gator in ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}'' and Maleficent's minions in ''Sleeping Beauty''. He directed the third ''Winnie The Pooh'' short, ''Tigger Too!'', and was supposed to direct several key sequences in ''The Rescuers'', but he sadly became the first of the Nine Old Men to pass away instead, in 1976; ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood1973'' is the final Disney Canon film made while all of the men were alive.
21	** '''''Les Clark''''' (November 17, 1907 – September 12, 1979): Was hired by Ub Iwerks right out of high school in 1926 as an "apprentice animator" alongside his more obscure contemporary Johnny Cannon, making him the first of the Nine Old Men to be recruited in (the others didn't join Disney until the mid 30's, nearly a decade later). Through the distinction of being, alongside Iwerks and Cannon, one of the few animators to remain with Disney following the seizure of the rights and crew behind the WesternAnimation/OswaldTheLuckyRabbit series, Clark rapidly became a major [=MVP=] at Disney with the dawn of the sound era, working on the skeletons in the original Silly Symphony ''Skeleton Dance'' and taking over as a major Mickey Mouse animator when Iwerks departed the studio in 1930. He dealt with a lot of emotional scenes in the Classic Disney Shorts and secured his position by animating the most complicated dwarf scenes in ''Snow White''. Other major reveals he supervised were Sorcerer Mickey waking his broom up in ''Fantasia'', the dance in ''Cinderella'', Lady's present box being opened at the beginning of ''Lady And The Tramp'', and directing parts of ''Sleeping Beauty'' (Clark was the film's original supervising director until prohibitively high costs led to his demotion in 1958) and the ''Paul Bunyan'' featurette in the late '50s. He stuck to live-action and educational material after that until his death in 1979.
22	** '''Marc Davis''' (March 30, 1913 – January 12, 2000): Initially an assistant to veteran animator Grim Natwick in the mid-'30s, Davis, noted for his gifts as a designer, started with animating Snow White herself (within a unit under Natwick's supervision) and would animate notable sequences such as Cinderella receiving her gown, then [[WesternAnimation/AliceInWonderland Alice]] and [[WesternAnimation/PeterPan Tinker Bell]] in the ensuing decades. His biggest achievement is animating two classic villainesses, first Maleficent in ''Sleeping Beauty'', and the more difficult Cruella de Vil in ''WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians''. This second one, however, convinced Davis to transfer to Imagineering, where he worked on a lot of Disneyland material until his retirement. Being the idol of several villain designers such as Andreas Deja, Davis passed away in 2000.
23	*** '''Alice Davis''' (born March 26, 1929): Marc's wife, who designed costumes for the company and has served on consulting roles on projects after her retirement.
24	** '''''Creator/MiltKahl''''' (March 22, 1909 – April 19, 1987): Joining Disney in 1934, he animated Mickey in a few mid-'30s cartoons and the forest animals in ''Snow White'', but he really got going with animating Pinocchio himself when the puppet came to life. He animated several more down to earth characters in the 50's such as WesternAnimation/PeterPan and Prince Phillip in ''Sleeping Beauty'', and moved on to more major characters such as BigBad Shere Kahn in ''The Jungle Book'' and the main villains of ''The Rescuers'', which was his last project prior to his retirement in 1976.
25	** '''Ollie Johnston''' (October 31, 1912 – April 14, 2008): Joining the studio in 1935, he started as a cleanup artist on ''Mickey's Garden'', and became the main assistant of the dwarfs in ''Snow White'' under Fred Moore. He animated the signature scene of Pinocchio unsuccessfully lying to the Blue Fairy and several other personality scenes, but got thrown a curveball with the evil stepsisters in ''Cinderella'', and then did Mr. Smee in ''Peter Pan''. At this point, he began working on characters that best friend Frank Thomas was assigned to, such as Mowgli and Baloo in ''The Jungle Book''. He retired during production of ''The Fox And The Hound'' in 1978, and was the last of the Nine Old Men to pass away (he died in 2008).
26	** '''Creator/WardKimball''' (March 4, 1914 – July 8, 2002): Joined the studio in 1934, but almost walked out at the end of the decade before he was assigned to Jiminy Cricket in ''Pinocchio''. Notable for his fast-paced and comedic character animation, Kimball mastered the DisneyAcidSequence when he animated the title song number in ''WesternAnimation/TheThreeCaballeros'', animated the Cheshire Cat in "Alice in Wonderland", directed the short ''Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom'' [[note]] the characters in this cartoon featured in the ''WesternAnimation/DisneySingAlongSongs'' video series in the 80's and 90's [[/note]], and did "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" in ''Film/MaryPoppins''. Increasingly gravitating towards educational featurettes (such as 1969's "It's Tough to Be a Bird") during the 1960s, Kimball resigned in 1973 when he clashed with Ron Miller's newly-installed studio management, although he was tapped for EPCOT in the 80's.
27	** '''''Wolfgang "Woolie" Reithermann''''' (June 26, 1909 – May 22, 1985): Effectively the de facto leader of the Nine Old Men, Woolie joined Disney in 1934, and immediately mastered in the animated action and tension scenes in the Disney movies such as the escape from Monstro in ''Pinocchio'', Timothy doing his scare in ''WesternAnimation/{{Dumbo}}'', the key retrieval at the end of ''Cinderella'', Tramp's fights in ''Lady And The Tramp'', and directing the iconic/classic final confrontation with Maleficent in her fearsome dragon form (and the castle escape and thorn garden just prior to this scene) in ''Sleeping Beauty''. Increasingly currying the favor of Walt Disney due to his efficiency (Disney himself allegedly viewing him as a quintessential "all-American boy"), Reithermann was promoted to a sequence director on "Sleeping Beauty" and "One Hundred and One Dalmatians"; following former lead director Gerry Geronimi's dismissal in 1959, Reithermann assumed his role and helmed the [[Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon Disney Animated Classics]] himself for two decades (spanning the period from ''WesternAnimation/TheSwordInTheStone'' to ''WesternAnimation/TheFoxAndTheHound''). Following a mass walkout of animators led by Don Bluth in 1979, however, studio management perceived Reithermann's increasingly slow-paced directorial style as a primary catalyst for Bluth's discontent and demoted him; he would depart in 1980, becoming the last of the Nine Old Men to leave the main animation studio. Following several years of retirement, Reithermann died in a car crash in 1985. He was spiritually succeeded by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Roy E. Disney, who were succeeded themselves by Ed Catmull and John Lasseter.
28	*** Bruce Reithermann (born September 15, 1955): Woolie's son and the voice of Mowgli in ''The Jungle Book'' and Christopher Robin in ''WesternAnimation/TheManyAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh''.

Context UsefulNotes / TheWaltDisneyFamilyAndTheNineOldMen