Walt Disney Family Museum to Celebrate Disney Imagineer Marc Davis June 30

Marc Davis (United States, 1913–2000) Good Fairies concept art, Sleeping Beauty (1959); courtesy of the Walt Disney Animation Research Library, © Disney

On Saturday, June 30, San Francisco’s Walt Disney Family Museum will celebrate the life and work of legendary Disney animator and Imagineer Marc Davis in an onstage conversation entitled, “Marc Davis Goes to WED.”

Part of the Nine Old Mentors series of public programs, the event will feature Oscar-winning director and Pixar Animation Studios Vice President-Creative, Pete Docter (Film/Video BFA 90), and author, Disney Imagineer and theme park designer Christopher Merritt in a discussion of Davis’ time and enduring influence at both The Walt Disney Studios and WED Enterprises.

Davis, an expert draftsman, animated such characters as Cinderella, Tinker Bell, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, and spent many years teaching at Chouinard Institute (one of CalArts’s predecessors). In 1960, he joined Imagineering, where he was instrumental in creating Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room, among other iconic attractions in the park.

The Museum’s program will also showcase rare and never-before-seen photos and video, lectures and interviews from Davis’ time at Chouinard, and stories from Davis’ wife, Disney costume designer Alice Davis (Chouinard Institute alumna), all collected during the research for Docter and Merritt’s upcoming book, Marc Davis Goes to WED: Designing the Disney Theme Parks.

The program will be presented in conjunction with the Museum’s special exhibition, Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men: Masters of Animation, highlighting the work of The Walt Disney Studios’ famed nine artists, who Disney playfully dubbed the “Nine Old Men.”