TWO PORTRAITS OF MARC

I'd like to share a couple of mementos from my long association with Marc Davis, with whom I had the privilege of spending time in Los Angeles (his wife, Alice, was - and I'm sure still is - a fabulous cook!) and London and who contributed to several of my BBC radio series on Disney.

The first is a self-portrait...

The second is a, literal, 'thumbnail' history of Marc's career designed by the brilliant young animator Pres Romanillos (who was taken from us far too early) as a place-setting for a memorable evening in 1999 (the year before Marc's death) when a number of his friends met for dinner with Marc and Alice, at the El Conquistador Mexican restaurant on Sunset Boulevard.

I salvaged two copies at the end of the meal: one was signed to me by Marc and Pres but was subsequently 'lost' by the picture framer to whom I had taken it for framing - so, if you're ever offered a double-signed copy, you'll know the provenance!

Before his death, Pres Romanillos told me that he had presented the original of the drawing to Alice Davis and that it now hangs in their house in Marc's studio.

Marc Frasier Davis (1913–2000) worked for Disney as an artist, animator and designer and was one of Disney's 'Nine Old Men'.
Characters that Davis was responsible for designing or animating include the young Bambi, Thumper and Flower in Bambi (1942), Brer Rabbit in Song of the South (1946), the eponymous heroines of Cinderella (1950) and Alice in Wonderland (1951), Tinker Bell in Peter Pan (1953), Maleficent and the Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Cruella De Vil in 101 Dalmatians (1961). Davis also designed the characters for a number of rides and shows in the Disney parks, among them Disneyland's The Enchanted Tiki Room, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, Carousel of Progress, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Jungle Cruise, America Sings, Haunted Mansion, It's a Small World and the Country Bear Jamboree.

Images uploaded from my Disney flickr Photo Album.