Diane Disney Miller 1933-2013

Most of you have heard or read by now of the sudden passing of Walt Disney's daughter Diane.

My heart goes out to her husband Ron, her children, but also to the wonderful staff at the Walt Disney Family Museum.

I met Diane years ago at the house of Marc and Alice Davis. Frank & Ollie's book on Disney Villains had just been published, and I brought a copy along with me. When I asked Diane to sign it, she politely declined. I remember her words: 

"My family is very proud of our heritage, but we don't take credit for it."

At first I was surprised, but the more I thought about it, the more I respected Diane's point of view.

When Alice announced that we were all going to have lunch at the Tam O'Shanter restaurant nearby, Diane said: "Gosh…Dad and I used to go there all the time".

That phrase stunned me for a moment, after all only Diane (and her younger sister Sharon) could refer to Walt Disney as dad.

Over the years I had the chance to see Diane at various functions, my most recent get together was just last September in a meeting with Museum staff and members of her family. Diane was full of energy, full of ideas for future exhibitions, panels and events at the Museum.

Due to her strong will and convictions, all of us in LA can enjoy performances at the amazing Walt Disney Concert Hall, which finished construction in 2003, but only because of Diane's persistence and generous support.

Alice Davis said that Diane was like her father in many ways. When she wanted to get something done, she did it with passion, the best way possible, no matter how many obstacles might come her way.

To say that she will be missed is an understatement.

This photo was taken last year at the unveiling of the Walt Disney Storyteller sculpture. From left to right:

Marty Sclar, Imagineer Ray Spencer, Diane, imagineer/animator Blaine Gibson, Mickey, Walt, me and sculptor Rick Terry.

Mickey Mouse sketch by Fred Moore, early 1940s.

If Fred Moore had his way...

…Snow White might have looked like this. In his beautiful sketch the princess looks very young, and her appearance matches the design of the dwarfs very well. But Walt Disney felt that in order for her to feel real to an audience Snow White had to be drawn with more realism. A cartoony looking girl couldn't portray the dramatic as well as the romantic scenes the way he envisioned it.

Live action reference was filmed, and thanks to animator Grim Natwick and assistant Marc Davis Snow White turned out to be as believable as any live actress on film.

Here are just a few versions that preceded the final choice.

Gustaf Tenggren

Albert Hurter

Unknown to me, but what a great drawing.

Young Marge Champion acted out scenes for the animators. Black lines on her costume helped the artists to translate the photo stats into drawings. They couldn't have picked a better actress to perform this role. Marge brought so much life to the character with her natural and confident acting.

Missed Opportunity

This is one of those things, when a friend asks you to do some character design work. The funding for an animate feature would just be around the corner, blah, blah , blah.

I actually thought the script had potential, so I came up with character designs for this new Arabian Nights Fairy Tale.There were Witches, a prince, a princess and a variety of animals.

I did enjoyed working on the character concepts until I was told that funding for the originally highly budgeted film had been pulled.

Still, I enjoyed creating  these character concepts, and I still believe this could be a great hand drawn animated feature.

The temporary panther design was influenced by Bagheera from the the magnificent Russian animated film The Jungle Book, directed by Roman Davydov. It is available on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Jungle-Book-Original-Classic/dp/B000O75GY4/ref=pd_sim_sbs_mov_1 

Penguins

After having seen the fabulous film "Saving Mr. Banks" I feel inclined to do a post on Mary Poppins' penguins. They were animated by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, Ollie did most of the introductory scenes, and Frank did the famous dance with Dick Van Dyke.

The photo shows the two animators acting as penguins in front of animation director Ham Luske ( who was a fantastic animator in the early days of Disney) and animation art director McLaren Stewart.

Milt Kahl helped to design these characters based on story sketches. As usual his drawings show very pleasing shapes and forms. He also deals with foreshortening issues, like the difficult facial front view.

Milt didn't do any animation with the penguins, he instead focused on the terrific fox during the hunting sequence. More on that in this previous post:

http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/07/mary-poppins-fox.html

Frank Thomas knew he needed to dig a little deeper as far as animatable penguin anatomy and range of motion. He also found beautiful graphic solutions for how the wings are attached to the body. Great observation of real penguin behavior! Just wonderful stuff!!

What a great way to squash and stretch a penguin's upper body in the small doodle on the right.

Disney Leading Ladies

Here is a little background information on a few actresses who acted out scenes for the animators.

Though this article was published many years ago, it is fun to see faces next to the drawings. Everybody was cast perfectly for their individual roles, Kathryn Beaumont not only provided live action reference, but also voiced her characters beautifully.

The Colonel

Storyman Bill Peet drew these sketches of The Colonel, an Old English sheepdog, from the 1961 movie 101 Dalmatians.

Most of the animation for this character was done by John Lounsbery, who must have been relieved to have gotten this assignment. After animating mostly serious and dramatic scenes for the previous film epic Sleeping Beauty, he again was given the opportunity to handle comic animation.

When you look at Lounsbery's career, it's his eccentric characters who are the most memorable. The alligators in Dance of the Hours, some of the Mice in Cinderella, the crocodile in Peter Pan and Tony & Joe in Lady and the Tramp are just a few highlights. 

Below are a few of his oversized thumbnail drawings for the scene when the Colonel, after realizing that Pongo and Perdita are close by, tries to meet them half way. "By jove, it can't be the Pongos!" The Colonel runs screen left over a frozen surface, and Lounsbery knows exactly how to play this scene for optimum comic effect.

Over the years John didn't get to develop his "own" characters very often in the way Frank & Ollie or Milt did. But the Colonel is one of his animated creations.

So much life in these drawings.

One of my Days

In 1978 Wilhelm M. Busch published a small edition with a collection of drawings, depicting moments from one day of his life. Busch gets up in the morning, takes the bus to the Hamburg art school, where he teaches life drawing. In the afternoon he visits the circus to sketch animals.

He returns home, watches some TV with his wife before going to bed.

Busch had given his students this kind of assignment before to draw key moments from one day in their lives. Eventually he went through the exercise himself, and here are just a few illustrations from that effort.

What a fantastic idea for student homework! It teaches you how to analyze and draw what you do on a given day of your life. I encourage everybody to do the same thing, I know I will, as soon as I find some time. Great challenge!