Joe Grant, a writer, artist, character designer, and head of the fabled Disney Model Department, who joined the Company in 1933 and was still working four days a week at the Disney Studio when he passed away in 2005, was born in New York City on this day in 1908. One of the Company’s great creative minds, Joe co-wrote the screen story of Dumbo and played a major role in the development of such early classics as Fantasia and Pinocchio. After leaving the Company in 1949 to start his own business, he returned in 1989 and lent his talents to such films as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. Chicken Little, the last film Joe worked on, was also dedicated to him. In Neal Gabler’s Walt Disney: The Triumph of the Imagination, Joe provided fascinating insight into what made a story like Dumbo, which he adapted from a slim children’s book, so perfect for the big screen. “The story was clear and air-tight to everyone involved in the project,” he remembered. We didn’t do a lot of stuff over due to the story-point goofs. There were no sequences started and then shelved, like in Pinocchio. Walt was sure what he wanted and this confidence was shared by the entire crew.” Joe was named a Disney Legend in 1992.
