"Marc Davis, of course, was one of Walt's nine old men, the animators. And Marc really contributed the fantastic vignettes to the attraction. All the gags, the wonderful characters brought to life in the ride."
―Tom Fitzgerald on Davis' role in Pirates of the Caribbean[src]
Marc Fraser Davis (March 30, 1913 – January 12, 2000) was a prominent American artist, animator and Imagineer. He dedicated his creative genius to helping Walt Disney realize his dreams, ranging from perfecting the animated story to creating the world's first theme park, Disneyland. Davis was one of Disney's Nine Old Men for his knowledge and understanding of visual aesthetics, the famed core animators of Disney animated films.
A brilliant draftsman, Davis also designed the characters for many Disneyland ride and show animatronics, including Pirates of the Caribbean. In 1989, Marc Davis was named a Disney Legend. Davis died in January 2000. That same month, the Marc Fraser Davis Scholarship Fund formally was established at the California Institute of the Arts.
Biography[]
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Animator Marc Davis was a star at the Disney studio from the 1940s to the 1970s and while Walt Disney never overtly played favorites, you could definitely tell he was one of the artists who Walt valued the most, and for good reason.
Marc Davis was born in Bakersfield, California in 1913 and was basically a self-taught artist since childhood, often sketching the animals at his local zoo while at the same time observing human beings and drawing them too. His keen observation of living things and the ways they behaved would be a key component in his development as an animator, and he had a lot of time for practice since his parents were often busy and he moved around a lot because of his father’s constantly changing jobs. A lonely life for a child. But when he got older he attended art classes wherever he could, including the Kansas City Art Institute where Walt Disney happened to study, and the Otis Art Institute (now known as Otis College of Art) in L.A., a school which featured such alumni as Looney Tunes director Bob Clampett and Bambi background painter Tyrus Wong. An
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Marc Davis is one of the best-known of the animators at the Disney Company. In fact, he is one of the company’s original panel of respected animators that were depended upon to make the early Disney cartoon movies magical. He also had an important hand in designing many of the characters on the iconic Disney theme park rides. Here is his story.
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Marc Davis was an animator for Walt Disney Animation Studios and a prominent American artist in his own right. He became one of the illustrious Nine Old Men of the Disney Company; these men were the core group of animators of the early Disney animated films and were admired for their understanding of visual aesthetics. Marc moved on to work for Disney Imagineering after working on the One Hundred and One Dalmatians movie. As an Imagineer, Marc worked on designing rides at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World.
Walt Disney himself greatly admired Marc. He once said of him:
“Marc can do story, he can do character, he can animate, he can design shows for me. All I have to do is tell him