April 14 - Harry Holt

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On this day, in 2004, Harry Holt passed away in Casselberry, Florida. Born on April 11, 1911, Harry never had any formal art training, he was just a kid who loved to draw and did it constantly. In 1936, he was visiting his mother in Southern California when a friend showed him a newspaper advertisement for artists needed at the Walt Disney Studio. It was the height of the Great Depression, Harry was unemployed and he figured he had nothing to lose by applying. His talent was enough (or as he might put it, the studio’s need was enough) to secure him a job as an apprentice in the animation department.

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Harry’s first assignment was as an inbetweener on the Silly Symphony Woodland Café. Once he’d satisfactorily cut his teeth, he was quickly moved onto the studio’s main project at the time, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, again as an inbetweener. One specific scene that Harry worked on is of the Evil Queen in her old hag disguise rowing down the river. By the studio’s next feature, Pinocchio, he’d become an assistant animator working directly under Eric Larson, one of Walt’s Nine Old Men.

As World War II ramped up, Harry was kept busy at the studio working on training films for the Navy. Not only did the work provide his living, it also granted him deferments from being sent to the battlefront. By the time all his deferments ran out, his 31^st birthday had passed and he could no longer be drafted under rules Congress had also just enacted. Content to remain in Southern California, safely churning out films for the military, Harry became a full-fledged animator in 1943. Over the next thirteen years, he worked mainly in the shorts department creating memorable moments for both Pluto and Donald Duck.

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During the latter half of the Forties, Harry brought in extra cash by moonlighting as a comic book artist. Working under Benjamin Sangor at the American Comics Group, he drew comedic animals for the Merry Go-Round Comics label and had his own feature under the Barnyard Comics brand, Blackeye and Blubber.

By 1956, Harry could see the writing on the wall for the Shorts Department and he decided to leave Disney under his own power. He took a job offer with Fred Niles Communication Center in Chicago, Illinois. Now working for the largest producer of television commercials in the eastern half of the United States, Harry was made art director of both the company’s live action and animated efforts. He enjoyed his work for four years, but couldn’t stand the icy winters and moved back to Southern California in 1960.

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Disney had just released Sleeping Beauty, but had also laid off three fourths of its animation staff and was seriously considering not making anything other than live action films. With no chance of returning to his old job, Harry took a position with Hanna-Barbera. For the next few years he lent his talents to such classic cartoons as The Flintstones, The Jetsons and Top Cat. During this time he also worked over at MGM on the Tom and Jerry series.

In 1966, Harry returned to Disney to start the second phase of his career with the Mouse. This time he was hired over at WED Enterprises (the department that eventually became Imagineering) and he spent his time turning artist’s sketches into three dimensional models, known as maquettes, which would in turn be developed into full sized Audio-Animatronic figures. Harry helped develop the look of characters in the Country Bear Jamboree, the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan’s Flight, Snow White’s Scary Adventures, and the Mickey Mouse Revue.

By 1976, Harry was made Art Director in charge of Quality Control and Product Design, which basically meant he was in charge of the look of the merchandise sold at Walt Disney World. One of the highlights of this phase of his career was the creation of the Amerikids figurines in 1979, his American answer to the European styled Hummel figures.

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In 1980, Harry was assigned to the team working on all the plans for Epcot Center. Again he spent most of his time creating maquettes for the attractions, although some of the Aztec style art that made it onto the front of the pyramid in the Mexico pavilion of World Showcase was done by his hand. The following year, Harry moved to Japan for several months, working his usual magic for the installation of several attractions and shows for the company’s first international theme park, Tokyo Disneyland. Many of the molds that had been used for figures and props in Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom had fallen into disrepair and needed Harry’s expertise in making them functional again.
Then in 1982, shortly after his return from Japan, Harry officially retired from the Walt Disney Company. Spoiler alert: like so many of the guys who’d been around since the Thirties, his retirement didn’t stick. In 1987, Harry was asked to take up residence in a little nook of the Disneyana Collectibles Store on Main Street USA in the Magic Kingdom. His job was to sit at an animator’s desk, interact with guests and complete sketches of some of his most famous characters to give away. It started out as a promotional stunt for the upcoming Disney-MGM Studios, which was going to feature its own animation department. Harry proved so popular with guests (most of whom had no idea who he actually was) that he enjoyed his part time gig for seven years, only stopping when the work became too much for his then 83 year old body. For the next decade, he lived quietly at home in Central Florida with his wife of 27 years, still drawing nearly every day, until passing away a few days after turning 93.

March 16 - Joyce Carlson

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On this day, in 1923, Joyce Carlson was born in Racine, Wisconsin. Joyce and her family moved to Southern California when she was 15. After graduating from Santa Monica High School, she needed a job and became a member of the Traffic Department at the Walt Disney Studio. Her job was to deliver mail, paint brushes, coffee and anything else that was needed to the various departments of the studio. It wasn't long before she wanted something more, so Joyce created a portfolio of drawings, showed them to management and was promptly moved into the Ink and Paint Department.

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Joyce's first assignments were the shorts Disney created for the United States Government during World War II. She was quickly moved into the Feature Animation division and worked on The Three Caballeros, Cinderella and Peter Pan. During production on Lady and the Tramp, Joyce was promoted to a Lead Ink Artist position which carried on into Sleeping Beauty and One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Technology had advanced by that time, however. Dalmatians ushered in the era of xerography, which allowed animators drawings to be photocopied onto cels, eliminating the need for inkers. As the Ink and Paint Department shrunk accordingly, Joyce, after 16 years of expertly floating paint on acetate, transferred to WED Enterprises and began the Imagineering phase of her career.

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In 1962, Joyce began a mentoring process under two legends: Mary Blair and Marc Davis. Her first project was as part of the team designing and dressing the sets for the Carousel of Progress for the 1964 World's Fair. She worked closely with Leota Toombs, who had also come from the Ink and Paint Department (and would later achieve immortality as the face of Madame Leota in the Haunted Mansion), specifically creating the sturdier show hinges on all of the doors of the GE appliances that were used in the attraction.

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Joyce is best known for her work on another ride for the Fair, UNICEF's It's a Small World. She was responsible for designing and building the majority of the singing children figures seen throughout the attraction. She was also one of handful of cast members who traveled to New York to oversee the installation of all the Disney created pavilions. After the Fair, she was in charge of moving It's a Small World across country to Disneyland and eventually supervised the creation of the versions in Florida, Tokyo and Paris.

After the World's Fair projects were completed, Joyce and Leota continued to work together making models and final figures for all sorts of attractions. Her work can be seen in The Enchanted Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, Country Bear Jamboree and America Sings (which had a whole slew of its figures recycled into Splash Mountain), to name a few.

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In 1982, Joyce moved to Florida where she became the resident Small World expert and was promoted to Senior Show Production Designer for Walt Disney World. She was the first female employee of the company to reach both the 50 and 55 year anniversary marks. She retired from full time work in 2000, but like most of Disney's old timers, continued to work at least part time for six more years and was available to mentor new Imagineers beyond that. Just after her retirement in 2000, Joyce was made an official Disney Legend. She was also given her own window on Main Street, USA in the Magic Kingdom that reads "Dolls by Miss Joyce - Dollmaker for the World - Shops in New York, California, Florida, Japan and Paris - Owner and Founder, Joyce Carlson." The eagle eyed among us can also spot a figure in her likeness in the Florida version of Small World. Joyce succumbed to cancer on January 8, 2008 at her home in Orlando, Florida. She was 84.

November 6 - Bruce Gordon

On this day, in 2007, Imagineer Bruce Gordon passed away in Glendale, California. Born on April 18, 1951 in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, Bruce did most of his growing up in Palo Alto, California. He went to Disneyland with his family shortly after it opened in 1955 and was hooked on all things Disney for life. So hooked, he would spend his teen years building models of his favorite attractions in his parents garage. A hobby that paid off in the early 1980s, when Bruce landed a job with the Walt Disney Company.

One of the first projects Bruce had with the company was as (surprise!) a prop builder for the Journey Into Imagination attraction at Epcot. Another long time Imagineer, Tony Baxter, first met Bruce on that project and immediately bonded with him. Years later, Tony would call their partnership nearly perfect as Tony "was an idea guy and Bruce could turn ideas into reality."

Bruce would integral to turning the idea of Splash Mountain into reality, earning himself a show producer credit on that attraction. He would also produce the show for the renovation of Fantasyland, the building of the Winnie the Pooh ride, and the creation Tarzan's Treehouse and the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. On top of all that, Bruce also has a show writer credit for Star Tours.

Bruce's side hobby of sorts was writing books about Disney. His most famous book is a 4.5 pound tome titled Disneyland: The Nickel Tour. It's a history of Disneyland told through picture postcards from the park with unique stories about each one. The company declined to print it because they felt it would be too expensive to bother, so Bruce and his co-author, fellow Imagineer David Mumford, self-published it. That was a good move as it made it through a third printing. Bruce also wrote The Art of Disneyland, The Art of Walt Disney World, Disneyland: Then, Now and Forever and Walt Disney World: Then, Now and Forever.

Near the end of his life, Bruce had actually left Walt Disney Imagineering to work on another project. Walt's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, had personally asked him to help with the creation of the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, California. She was impressed with Bruce's ability to see her father as a man, rather than a brand. Sadly, Bruce would suddenly pass away before the museum was opened, but not before he had a major influence on the look and feel of it. He was only 56 years old.

September 11 - Don Edgren

On this day, in 1923, engineer Don Edgren was born in Los Angeles, California.

 As the son of a mason, building things was just part of Don's DNA. Which makes it ironic that, after graduating high school, he joined the Army Air Forces and flew more than 45 combat missions in World War II blowing stuff up. Upon his return home after the war, he made up for that by getting married and earning a degree in civil engineering at the University of Southern California. The first thing allowed him to start building a family. The second took him on an adventure he never dreamed of.


In 1954, Don worked for a company called Wheeler and Gray when he was assigned to a little project in Anaheim called Disneyland. Wheeler and Gray had been hired to work on the structural design of the park and also to assist with many of the more technical aspects. Don was assigned the role of an on-site Chief Project Engineer. Apparently his work was pretty impressive to Walt and Don in turn was impressed by the Disney company. In 1961, he came to interview with the company. As Don loved to tell it, Walt casually dropped by the interview, asked him some questions about the Swiss Family Treehouse attraction currently under construction, and hired him on the spot. For the next 26 years, Don would be the major problem solver for the Imagineering department.

The first problem Don solved actually happened before he became an Imagineer and it involved the Matterhorn Bobsleds. Most engineers at the time said it wasn't feasible to put a roller coaster, a sky ride and waterfalls in a hollow mountain like that. Don said it was challenging but not impossible. And the fact that he made it happen probably contributed to his easy interview.


In 1963, Don became part of the team working on the company's attraction for the Ford pavilion at the upcoming World's Fair in New York. Between animatronic dinosaurs and a continuous line of Ford cars that automatically moved on a fixed track, Don helped create innovations that influence Disney rides right up to today. For instance, just substitute bouncing Tiggers for the dinosaurs and honey pots for the cars and, voila!, you have the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh attraction.

The next major obstacle came when Walt decided that Pirates of the Caribbean would change from a walk-through attraction to a boat ride after construction had already begun. Suddenly Imagineers had to figure out how to take the existing show building deeper underground and make it larger. Don's enthusiasm for the project earned him the nickname Yesman Edgren, not because he automatically agreed with everything Walt suggested but because he had the ability to turn other people's nos into yeses.


Throughout the 1970s, Don managed to keep himself busy. First he became the Vice President of Engineering, Orlando and helped develop the master plan for the Florida Project. In 1972, he returned to California as the Engineering Vice President for Imagineering, still known as WED Enterprises back then. He supervised the crew that created Space Mountain. At the end of the decade, he began coordinating the engineering for the first international park, Tokyo Disneyland. He once said that living in Japan was one of the most enjoyable experiences of his life.

By 1987, Don had been a part of the creation of almost all the Disney park real estate that existed, in one way or another, so he did what anyone else would do after two and a half decades of frenetic problem solving, he retired. In 2006, Don was named a Disney Legend and he also has a window on Main Street, USA in Disneyland that reads "Yesmen Engineering Associates, No challenge to big for our yes men!, We know no 'no', Don Edgren, Chief Engineer". Don passed away in December of that year after suffering a stroke while visiting relatives in Eugene, Oregon. He was 83.

September 4 - Francis Xavier Atencio

On this day, in 1919, Francis Xavier Atencio was born in Walsenburg, Colorado.

Xavier, who frequently went by simply X, moved to Los Angeles, California in 1937 to attend the Chouinard Art Institute. A shy but talented young man, his instructors had to almost force him to submit his work to the Disney Studio for consideration for a job. X later managed to amuse his neighbors when he went running by their houses shouting at the top of his lungs "I got a job at Disney!".

X joined the Disney Studio in 1938 and three years later he was an assistant animator working on Fantasia. By then World War II was heating up for America. X left the studio to join the United States Army Air Forces as a photo interpreter. Stationed in England, he spent over three years analyzing aerial surveillance pictures for information to pass on to the boys at the front. Serving with the 2nd Photo Tech Squadron, X attained the rank of captain before being discharged in 1945.

Upon his return to the Disney Studio, X went right to work as an animator in the shorts department. In 1953, he received his first screen credit for the Academy Award winning "Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom". X also contributed to two other Oscar nominated films: the first stop motion animated film produced by the studio, 1959's "Noah's Ark", and 1962's "A Symposium on Popular Songs." He would become something of an expert on title sequences for live action movies, helping to create the openings for the likes of The Parent Trap, Babes in Toyland and Mary Poppins. You can even find evidence of his artistry in the "I'm No Fool" series that originally ran on the Mickey Mouse Club. But some of his greatest work was yet to come.

 In 1965, Walt asked X to change departments and join the team at WED Enterprises, the group that eventually became known as Imagineers. The first project he worked on was re-purposing animatronic dinosaurs from the 1964 World's Fair Ford pavilion into a scenic view for the Disneyland Railroad.  X then began not only writing scripts for some of most beloved Disney attractions of all time, he wrote music for them, too, much to his own surprise. He once said "I didn't even know I could write music, but somehow Walt did."

The next attraction of X's to open was Pirates of the Caribbean, in early 1967. He wrote the show script for it, wrote its theme song, "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)" and provided various voices for it. The next ride boasting an X Atencio script was Adventure Thru Inner Space, opening later the same year. Two years later, in 1969, another X masterpiece opened: The Haunted Mansion. Again, he wrote the script, its theme song, "Grim Grinning Ghosts" and his voice can be heard coming from the coffin in the conservatory. As an added bonus, if you ever get stuck on the Disneyland version of Mansion, X provides the emergency spiel.

X's contributions to Disney attractions continued throughout the 1970s. When the Florida Project came along, X wrote lyrics for Buddy Baker's theme music for If You Had Wings and helped design Space Mountain. When plans for Epcot began rolling out, he had a hand in Spaceship Earth, World of Motion and the Mexico Pavilion. And, just so the sun will never set on his handiwork, in 1983, X made multiple trips to Tokyo Disneyland to supervise all the recordings that went into their version of the Haunted Mansion.

X retired in 1984 after spending 47 years creating a spectacular body of work for the Walt Disney Company. He was officially declared a Disney Legend in 1996 and passed away at the ripe old age of 98 in 2017.