
Born: Retta Scott
Birthday: February 23, 1916
Location: Omak, WA, U.S.
Alma mater: Chouinard Art Institute
Occupation: Animator
Years active: 1938-1946
Died: August 26, 1990
Retta Scott was born in Omak, Washington. When Scott was in the 4th grade, she received a scholarship from the Seattle Art & Music Foundation she used to attend 10 years of creative art classes. Later, she earned a 3-year scholarship to the Chouinard Art Institute. When she moved to Los Angeles, California to attend, she spent most of her free time sketching animals at the Griffith Park zoo.
Due to the quality of her wildlife drawings, Chouinard’s director, Vern Caldwell, encouraged Scott to apply to Walt Disney studios. She was hired in 1938 and assigned to the Story Department where she drew storyboards for Bambi while it was in pre-production. Retta spent weeks developing Bambi’s mother, and turning the hunting dogs into truly vicious beasts. Walt Disney himself was impressed by her drawings and assigned her to animate the scenes of the dogs chasing Faline once the film went into production. Taught by Disney animator Eric Larson, Retta Scott became the first woman to receive screen credit as an animator. Specializing in animal sketches, Scott contributed to Fantasia and Dumbo, and worked with Woolie Reitherman on a children’s book called B-1st that never reached publication.
Retta married submarine commander Benjamin Worcester and retired from Disney on August 2, 1946 to move with him to Washington, D.C. She took up illustrating books for publishers and even illustrated a Navy family submarine cookbook in support of her husband. She resumed working with Disney as a freelancer by illustrating the Big Golden Book edition of Disney’s Cinderella.
After she and Worcester divorced in 1978, Scott continued working as an illustrator until she returned to animation; working for Martin Rosen on The Plague Dogs. She was also hired as an animator by the Luckey-Zamora Moving Picture Company in 1982.
The Walt Disney Co. posthumously named her a Disney Legend in 2000.
No Comment