February 11 - Blaine Gibson

Image copyright Disney

On this day, in 1918, Ira Blaine Gibson was born in Rocky Ford, Colorado. Growing up on his parents' melon farm, Blaine showed his artistic talents at an early age. When he was twelve, he won a national contest sponsored by Proctor and Gamble for carving a figure out of a bar of Ivory Soap. The grand prize was $10 for his elephant.

Blaine would go to Western State College and the University of Colorado studying art until his family ran out of money. At the age of 21 he wrote to the Walt Disney Studio inquiring about a job. The studio sent him an application that required him to show off his drawing skills. Not only did he get the job, but he was asked to sign a release for the sketch he made of a boy milking a cow into a cat's mouth as the company wanted to use it right away. So, in the spring of 1939, Blaine moved to Southern California.

Image copyright Disney

Blaine began as an assistant animator at Disney. He worked on features like Fantasia, Bambi and Song of the South. By 1949, he was permanently assigned to working under Frank Thomas, one of Walt's Nine Old Men, and assisted him on such films as Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty and Peter Pan. He was good at animation but always kept an interest in sculpting, so much so that he would attend classes at Pasadena City College to improve his work. That dedication would pay off in 1954.

Image copyright Disney

As work was gearing up on Disneyland, Walt began pulling more and more people from the studio to work on his park. He discovered Blaine's talent as a sculptor and immediately put him to work on the new Project. Over the years, Blaine would sculpt faces for Audio-Animatronics in attractions from an uncanny likeness of Abraham Lincoln for the 1964 World's Fair to the Haunted Mansion to Pirates of the Caribbean to It's a Small World. When asked where he got his inspiration for so many different looks, he admitted that some of the ghouls and pirates he created might have looked a lot like people from his church while others were people he'd had dinner with over the years.

When Walt Disney World was being designed, not only were many of Blaine's creations duplicated in the Florida versions of existing attractions, but he was tapped to sculpt each of the Commanders in Chief for the Hall of Presidents in Liberty Square. Even after his retirement, Blaine would return to sculpt each new president. The first 43 Presidents in the Hall, from George Washington to George W. Bush, were all done by Blaine.

Image copyright Disney

Blaine's best known work, however, was produced in 1993, the statue known as Partners. The copper statue of Walt, holding hands with Mickey Mouse, gesturing out over the park and towards the future, has become synonymous with the Walt Disney Company. Working from a 1960 bust of Walt, Blaine modeled it after what he considered to be Walt's prime years, the mid-Fifties. He once said that the hardest part of the piece to get right was Mickey's fingers as they wrapped around Walt's. The original Partners is located in the hub area of Disneyland. Reproductions have found their way into four other locations around the world: the hub area of the Magic Kingdom in Florida, Tokyo Disneyland in Japan, The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California and The Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris, France. The statue was also given out in a miniature version, called Partners in Excellence, for a while to recognize Cast Members who were nominated by their peers as someone who embodied the spirit of Walt Disney.

Blaine retired from the Walt Disney Company in 1983 after 44 years of enduring contributions to the company's legacy. Besides returning every 4-8 years to create a new face for the Hall of Presidents, he would come back in 1993 to be honored as an official Disney Legend, for obvious reasons. On July 5, 2015, Blaine passed away from heart failure at his home in Montecito, California. He was 97.