Sammy McKim (December 20, 1924 – July 9, 2004) was a Canadian film actor and artist. He graduated from Los Angeles Art Center with a Bachelor of Arts Degree and was born in

Vancouver, British Columbia Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

. He died in

Burbank, California Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank has a population of 107,337. The city was named after David Burbank, wh ...

from

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, ...

in 2004. McKim Served in the U.S. Army in 1943 with his brother David McKim where he fought in the Korean War. He earned the Distinguished Service Cross medal for being shot down in combat during the Korean War. After the war McKim stopped acting and became an artist, starting his career at the art department of Fox Studios before moving to the

Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October 1 ...

where he'd stay for the next 32 years until his retirement in 1987, 12 of which he would work closely with

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

WED Enterprises/Walt Disney Imagineering career

McKim began his career at WED Enterprises in 1954 as an illustrator six months prior to the opening of

Disneyland Disneyland is a theme park in Anaheim, California. Opened in 1955, it was the first theme park opened by The Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. Disney initially envisi ...

. One of his earliest illustrations being of The Golden Horseshoe in Frontierland as well as storyboards for various films and television shows such as, Nikki, Wild Dog of the North, Big Red, and

Zorro Zorro ( Spanish for 'fox') is a fictional character created in 1919 by American pulp writer Johnston McCulley, appearing in works set in the Pueblo of Los Angeles in Alta California. He is typically portrayed as a dashing masked vigilant ...

. Later on he would contribute some illustrations for Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion. He was also responsible for the concept art of all four Disney attractions seen at the New York World's Fair 1964–1965. By 1958 McKim became known as "master map maker" for creating the Disneyland Park souvenir maps that were sold at the park from 1958 to 1964. After retiring from Walt Disney Imagineering in 1987, McKim was brought back in 1992 to help his son Matt McKim on the Disneyland Paris project (also known as Euro Disneyland) to help create the map for the park. During the process of making the map for Euro Disneyland McKim suffered a heart attack which led him to asking Tony Baxter for a replacement on the map project which was refused by Baxter because he would have rather waited until McKim was done with the map. McKim would eventually go on to finishing the map for the park three weeks after the opening of Euro Disneyland.

Awards and honors

In 1996, McKim was inducted as a Disney Legend. Two years after his death, in 2006, McKim received the honor of having his name appear on Main Street, U.S.A.

windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

. The window, which can be found above the Main Street Photo Supply Co. reads:

Cartography Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an ...

Masterworks – Sam McKim – Map Maker of the Kingdom – There's Magic in the Details.

Filmography

Bibliography

* * Holmstrom, John (1996). ''The Moving Picture Boy: An International Encyclopaedia from 1895 to 1995''. Norwich: Michael Russell, p. 130.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McKim, Sammy 1924 births 2004 deaths Canadian male film actors Canadian male child actors Canadian expatriate male actors in the United States Male actors from Vancouver 20th-century Canadian male actors Disney imagineers