Glen Keane (born April 13, 1954) is an American animator, author and illustrator. He was a

character animator Adobe Character Animator is an Emmy Award-winning desktop application software product that combines real-time live motion-capture with a multi-track recording system to control layered 2D puppets based on an illustration drawn in Photoshop or Il ...

Walt Disney Animation Studios Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS), sometimes shortened to Disney Animation, is an American animation studio that creates animated features and short films for The Walt Disney Company. The studio's current production logo features a scene fro ...

for feature films including '' The Little Mermaid'', ''

Beauty and the Beast ''Beauty and the Beast'' (french: La Belle et la Bête) is a fairy tale written by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and published in 1740 in ''La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins'' (''The Young American and Marine T ...

'', ''

Aladdin Aladdin ( ; ar, علاء الدين, ', , ATU 561, ‘Aladdin') is a Middle-Eastern folk tale. It is one of the best-known tales associated with ''The Book of One Thousand and One Nights'' (''The Arabian Nights''), despite not being part o ...

'', ''

Pocahontas Pocahontas (, ; born Amonute, known as Matoaka, 1596 – March 1617) was a Native American woman, belonging to the Powhatan people, notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter o ...

'', ''

Tarzan Tarzan (John Clayton II, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adv ...

'' and '' Tangled''. He received the 1992

Annie Award The Annie Awards are accolades which the Los Angeles branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood, has presented each year since 1972 to recognize excellence in animation shown in cinema and television. Originally d ...

for character animation and the 2007 Winsor McCay Award for lifetime contribution to the field of animation. He was named a Disney Legend in 2013. In 2017, Keane directed ''

Dear Basketball ''Dear Basketball'' is a 2017 American animated film written and narrated by Kobe Bryant and directed and animated by Glen Keane, with music by John Williams. The film is based on a letter Bryant wrote for ''The Players' Tribune'' on November 29, ...

'', an animated short film based on

Kobe Bryant Kobe Bean Bryant ( ; August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020) was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely ...

's retirement poem in ''

The Players' Tribune ''The Players' Tribune'' is a new media platform that produces daily sports conversation and publishes first-person stories from professional athletes. The platform was founded by former professional Major League Baseball player Derek Jeter in ...

'', for which Keane and Bryant received the

Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film The Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film is an award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) as part of the annual Academy Awards, or Oscars, since the 5th Academy Awards (with different names), covering the year ...

at the

90th Academy Awards The 90th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best 2017 in film, films of 2017, and took place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Californi ...

''.''

Early life

Keane was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...

, the son of cartoonist Bil Keane, creator of ''

The Family Circus ''The Family Circus'' (originally ''The Family Circle'', also ''Family-Go-Round'') is a syndicated comic strip created by cartoonist Bil Keane and, since Bil's death in 2011, is currently written, inked, and rendered (colored) by his son, Jef ...

'', and Australian-born Thelma Keane (née Carne). He was raised in

Paradise Valley, Arizona Paradise Valley is a town in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, and a suburb of Phoenix, the state's largest city. It is Arizona's wealthiest municipality. The town is known for its luxury golf courses, shopping, expensive real estate, an ...

as a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

. Keane's interest in art developed from observing his father's work as a cartoonist. (Keane's father based his ''Family Circus'' character of Billy on Glen's younger self.) To encourage Glen to draw, his father gave him a copy of Burne Hogarth's ''Dynamic Anatomy'', and recommended he observe body forms and practice creative approaches to life drawing. After graduating from high school at Brophy College Preparatory in 1972, Keane applied to the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of bo ...

School of Art, rather than accepting a football scholarship to another college. His application was accidentally sent to the Program in Experimental Animation (then called Film Graphics), where he was mentored by

Jules Engel Jules Engel (born Gyula Engel, March 11, 1909 – September 6, 2003) was an American filmmaker, painter, sculptor, graphic artist, set designer, animator, film director, and teacher. He was the founding director of the experimental animation ...

Career

Keane left CalArts in 1974 and joined Disney the same year, where he spent three years working with veteran animator Ollie Johnston on the characters

Bernard Bernard ('' Bernhard'') is a French and West Germanic masculine given name. It is also a surname. The name is attested from at least the 9th century. West Germanic ''Bernhard'' is composed from the two elements ''bern'' "bear" and ''hard'' "brav ...

and

Penny A penny is a coin ( pennies) or a unit of currency (pl. pence) in various countries. Borrowed from the Carolingian denarius (hence its former abbreviation d.), it is usually the smallest denomination within a currency system. Presently, it is t ...

in '' The Rescuers''. He subsequently animated Elliott the Dragon in ''

Pete's Dragon ''Pete's Dragon'' is the title of two Disney live-action films: * ''Pete's Dragon'' (1977 film) * ''Pete's Dragon'' (2016 film) {{Short pages monitor