November 7 - Roy Williams

On this day, in 1976, Roy Williams passed away in Burbank, California. Born July 30, 1907 in Colville, Washington, Roy and his mother moved to California after his father died. From the age of 12, he lived most of his life in the Los Angeles, California area. He played football for Fremont High School and drew cartoons for the school newspaper. After graduating in 1925, Roy went to work for the Walt Disney Studio. He said he found out about the job from a conversation with "one of the studio's office boys." Turned out that the office boy's name was on the studio's letterhead.

Walt hired Roy as part of the Art Department and sent him to study at the famed Chouinard Art Institute. As Roy's innate talent became more refined, he moved up to an in-between animator and then to a full fledged Animator. Roy worked on dozens of shorts over throughout the Thirties and Forties. His biggest talent turned out to be the creation of gags for all the different characters he and his team were tasked with drawing. His fellow animators knew that if they asked Roy to think of something funny for Mickey or Goofy or Donald to do, within minutes he could give them a list of twenty different gags for whatever situation they'd already thought of.

As the Shorts Department started to be phased out in the early Fifties, Roy was given the task of drawing storyboards for a new television show in the early stages of production, The Mickey Mouse Club. Roy was also making the rounds of local schools at the time, teaching kids how to draw Mickey Mouse and generally being a public face for the studio. His easy manner with kids, and his big, friendly physique, was key to Walt's decision to make him the co-host of the Club. Roy would become instrumental in the design of the show. He helped choose the initial cast of kids and he is credited with designing the iconic, and now ubiquitous, mouse ears. His quick sketch abilities would feature prominently in almost every episode. Off screen, Roy and his wife would frequently host parties for the cast at their home and he stayed in touch with many of the Mouseketeers long after the show ended.

When the Mickey Mouse Club ended it's run in 1959, Roy was the only cast member who stayed employed with the studio. He resumed more normal duties like he'd done for the prior thirty years. He would occasionally appear in television specials or a parade at Disneyland, of course proudly wearing his mouse ears. By the mid Seventies, Roy's health had forced him to officially retire after nearly 50 years with Disney. He would still show up on the lot and in Disneyland pretty regularly, sometimes just to sketch a few things for fans. After his death, he was cremated and interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery, just like the office boy he'd remained fiercely loyal to his entire adult life. In 1992, Roy was posthumously made an official Disney Legend alongside his Mickey Mouse Club co-host, Jimmy Dodd.