Ruthie Thompson grew up together with Mickey Mouse only to work on some of the most animated films in entertainment history.
The following written content by Hannah Sparks
Disney and fans have bid farewell to pioneering female animator Ruthie Thompson, who died Sunday at 111.
As an illustrator and storyboard planner at Disney, her work on some of the most iconic animated films in history, including “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937), “Sleeping Beauty” (1959), “Mary Poppins” (1964), “Robin Hood” (1970) and “The Aristocats” (1970), was largely uncredited.
She also took part in bringing “Pinocchio” (1940), “Fantasia” (1940), “Dumbo” (1941) and others to the silver screen.
“Mickey Mouse and I grew up together,” Thompson said.
The artist passed away at the home for Hollywood’s most influential seniors, the Motion Picture and Television Fund in Woodland Hills, California, the Hollywood Reporter reported Monday.
Born July 22, 1910, in Portland, Maine, Thompson moved from Boston, to Oakland, California, and, ultimately, Los Angeles in 1924. In a twist of fate, her family would just so happen to move-in down the block from Disney studio founders Walt and Roy Disney, who were living with their uncle Robert Disney when they first arrived in LA. Their homes were in close proximity to the original Disney Bros. Studio on Kingswell Avenue.
“Once Roy asked us neighborhood kids to play tag in the street, while he photographed us with a movie camera,” said Thompson during her Disney Legend honors interview, 21 years ago. “I suppose it was for the ‘Alice Comedies.’ He paid each of us a quarter, which I was glad for because I could buy licorice.”
At 18, she befriended Roy and Walt as adults while working at Dubrock’s Riding Academy, where the brothers often played polo. There, they invited her to work as an “inker” — “We’ll teach you what we want you to do,” they promised her, according to Variety — and later moved to the Paint Department, while launching the studio’s first motion picture, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
“I never wanted to do what I was supposed to do,” she said in the 2014 short film “Showfolk,” a documentary covering the few residents of the MPTF home. “My nose was just leading me to what I call trouble. That’s when I ran into Walt Disney.”
She continued that work on “Bambi” before being promoted to animation checker during World War II, a time in which many women assumed roles traditionally held by men. Thompson would help produce training and educational videos for the US Army that featured signature Disney characters Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy.
In 1952, she was lauded as one of the first of three women to join the International Photographers Union. Read more from NY Post.
Here’s a movie clip from an animation classic that Ruthie Thompson worked on- Fantasia:
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