Disney animation legend Dale Baer dies aged 70: 'We lost a gentle giant'

The longtime animator gave life to well-known characters such as Simba and Yzma

Dale Baer worked on films such as 'The Lion King' and 'Moana'. Animated Antic/Twitter

Animation luminary Dale Baer has died aged 70.

Baer was a longtime animator for The Walt Disney Company, beginning his career there as a trainee working under the Nine Old Men, a colloquial name given to Disney's core group of legendary animators who were behind some of the company's most famous cartoons, including the 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Click through the gallery below to see more films Baer worked on:

"It was so wonderful walking into this place and working with heroes of mine," Baer reminisced during a 2017 interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

The first film Baer worked on during his training programme was the 1973 feature Robin Hood, which reimagines the legend of the British outlaw using anthropomorphic animals instead of people.

Over the past five decades, Baer established himself as an influential figure in the industry in his own right, working on animation classics such as the 1985 fantasy film The Black Cauldron and the 1988 comedy Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

He was also the animator credited with visually developing the character of Simba in the 1994 film The Lion King, as well as Yzma, the villain in the 2000 feature The Emperor's New Groove.

More recently, Baer worked as part of the animation teams behind the 2016 adventure films Moana and Zootopia. His final project was working as part of the post-production team on the coming Bob's Burgers film, scheduled to be released later this year.

In the same 2017 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Baer said the animation industry had "blown up like crazy" with all the technological developments in recent years.

"I worked on two CG films at Disney," he said. "Though I still like drawing on paper, I'm glad they're both out there now. It's exciting."

Baer has won several awards for his works including the Annie Award, an accolade granted annually by the International Animated Film Association, and the Winsor McCay Award, which is given in recognition of a lifetime of career contributions in animation.

Fans and peers took to social media to mourn Baer after news of his death was confirmed by fellow animator and The Angry Birds Movie director Clay Kaytis.

“We lost a gentle giant of animation,” Kaytis wrote on Twitter. He described Baer as “one of the kindest people I’ve worked with. So talented and so humble. A true one-of-a-kind and I’m grateful to have known him.”

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