Born: Eric Cleon Larson
Birthday: September 3, 1905
Location: Cleveland, UT, U.S.
Alma mater: University of Utah
Occupation: Animator, Director
Years active: 1933-1986
Died: October 25, 1988

Eric Larson displayed his early artistic talent working on his high school yearbook all four years, and as its art director his senior year. While he still sketched in college, he was a journalism major at the University of Utah. He submitted a radio play he’d written to a local radio station, but they weren’t impressed. The station recommended Eric learn from their former writer, Richard Creedon, who was working in the Walt Disney Studios’ Story Department.

Eric did reach out to Creedon who was too busy to help, but as a consolation, suggested Larson try out as an artist for Disney. Eric grudgingly applied for the tryout and was accepted. He was uninspired by the repetitive nature of inbetweening, but endured to the end, and was hired on as an inbetweener in 1933.

Larson only in-betweened for about five weeks before animator Ham Luske requested Eric to be his assistant. Eric learned as they worked together of Disney shorts, and by the time Snow White began production, he could animate small parts and some of the Dwarfs’ sequences. He was promoted to an animation director for Figaro in Pinocchio, impressing Walt Disney himself.
Eric went on to create the centaurs and horses in the “Pastoral Symphony” segment of the Fantasia. He became a supervising animator for Bambi and created Friend Owl, the Aracuan Bird in The Three Caballeros, and Sasha the Bird in Make Mine Music. Larson also made artistic contributions to Fun and Fancy Free, Song of the South, Melody Time, and So Dear to My Heart.

As the years went on, Larson would go on to animate for Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. He worked on shorts, television specials, and the animated sequences in both hybrid films Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. He animated characters on The Aristocats and Robin Hood. Eric also animated the opening titles for The Rescuers with fellows Mel Shaw and Burny Mattinson.

As Disney’s Nine Old Men were aging and nearing retirement in the 1970s, the studio initiated a program to recruit and train a new generation of talented animators. Eric was chosen to lead the effort in 1973, as he had the temperament best suited to teaching. He toured colleges and art schools as a speaker and to invite their students to apply for work at Disney.

Larson mentored those who were accepted and hired. The list of his trainees is a virtual who’s-who of late 20th century animation.

Entering the 1980s, he served as animation consultant for animated projects like Mickey’s Christmas Carol, The Black Cauldron, and The Great Mouse Detective. By his retirement in 1986, Eric had been employed there for 53 years and was the longest-working employee at Disney.

Eric Larson was inducted as a Disney Legend 1988.