Ken O’Connor was a Disney layout artist par excellence for four decades. He created images that became touchstones in our psyche, including the coach in Cinderella, the marching cards in Alice in Wonderland and the dancing hippos in Fantasia.
As director T. Hee once recalled, “Ken was a charmer. Being from Australia, he’d make some crazy crack that only an Aussie can do. He was a bright, clever man and a man who enjoyed life. He never got upset about things, but just brushed them aside and kept on going. That made it nice for us to work together.” Ward Kimball, who worked with Ken on many projects, including futuristic fi lms for Disney television shows, added, “Ken arrived at some very interesting solutions. I’d ask him for some quick sketches of, say, how an underwater restaurant would look, and he would come up with some wild ideas.” […]
