The Last Golden Age Animator Moves On

Don Lusk's handiwork on "Fantasia"

Don Lusk, the last Disney animator from the 1930s, passed on today. He was one hundred and five and enjoyed a sixty-year long career before retiring at age eighty in 1993.

It was in 1933 that Don applied for work at a cartoon studio on Hyperion Avenue. He spent the next twenty-seven years at Walt Disney Productions, animating on "Ferdinand the Bull", "Pinocchio", "Bambi", Fantasia" and numerous others.

Don left Disney after completing his assignment on "101 Dalmatians" in 1960. Interviewed by the Animation Guild on his 100th birthday, he related how the studio had put him on a gray list of artists participating in the '41 Disney strike -- all earmarked for layoff:

[Walt said to my wife] "Everybody who goes into this file will eventually not work here ever again. ..."

I lasted [at Disney] until 1960. Hal Ambro, myself, four other guys, we were all let go. We were the last of the Mohicans. ...

After they laid me off, I went home Monday afternoon and the neighborhood was in turmoil because I think they all set their clocks by my getting home at quarter after five. And my wife came out the back door as I was getting out of the car and she said, "You got let go, huh?" And I said, "How did you know?"

And she said, "You had a smile on your face."

Don worked for another thirty-four years as a director and animator at every studio that wasn't named Disney. He was in his eighth decade when he finally laid his pencil aside, and then went on to another quarter century of contented retirement. (He related how he stopped driving at age 97, and hated to give it up. But his kids were relieved.)

You can hear Don's interview with the Animation Guild here, here and here.

You can see his acceptance of the Winsor McKay animation award directly below.