DISNEY INK & PAINT MANAGER BECKY FALLBERG DIES

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Longtime Disney employee Becky Fallberg, head of the studio's ink and
paint department from 1975 to 1986, has died at 84, Steve Hulett,
business representative for The Animation Guild (Local 839 IATSE),
announced Tuesday.

Fallberg was born in Los Angeles on June 10, 1923. She and her family
moved near Walt Disney Studios when she was 12.

She was a lover of Disney cartoons, which she watched almost every
Saturday afternoon at a local movie theater. She joined the studio in
1942 after graduating from John Marshall High School and studying art
for one year at Los Angeles City College. Her first job at Disney was
as a telephone operator.

Her parents, an electrician for the Los Angeles Department of Water
and Power and a homemaker, didn't approve. "It wasn't long after the
Depression," she explained. "My father thought I should get a secure
job at the postal service or the telephone company. He thought all I
wanted was glamor...."

Within months of joining Disney, Fallberg was promoted from telephone
operator to painter, working on animated training and propaganda
films, including 1943's Victory Through Air Power, which the studio
was producing in support of United States military efforts during the
Second World War.

Also during the war, she worked in the Navy Film Unit as a final
checker. She later worked on the theatrical shorts that were released
in the 1948 feature-length compilation Melody Time.

By 1943, she moved from ink and paint to the animation department,
where she copied animators' drawings for the color model department
and assisted animation supervisor Johnny Bond. As Bond's assistant,
she helped farm out animation scenes to be drawn by artists.

Then, in 1947, she became a blue sketch artist for the layout and
background department, helping to trace and chart character movement
within animated scenes for layout artists as they created the rich and
textured backgrounds that Disney characters moved against.

She returned to the ink and paint department in 1950 to serve as paint
matcher, and later, final checker, ensuring that animation cels were
properly drawn and colored. Then during the 1960s and early 1970s, she
worked in the newly-developed Xerox camera department, followed by Les
Clark's educational films department, where she and her supervisor
performed all ink and paint tasks.

She also worked on TV, special market and full-length theatrical
features.

Having worked on every Disney animated feature since 1943's Saludos
Amigos, Fallberg was promoted to manager of the ink and paint
department in 1975. An ink and paint supervisor on the 1985 feature
film The Black Cauldron, she remained head of the department until
1986, when she retired after over 45 years at Walt Disney Studios.

Fallberg once spoke of her favorite job: "I loved supervising the Art
Props department. There, I met people throughout the entire studio,
not just from a single department. The people were what made my years
at Disney special, and in that position, I met many. And we were all
working together toward the same goal -- making magic."

Fallberg was named a Disney Legend in 2000. She received The Animation
Guild's Golden Award in 2005.

An interview about her career is part of the Women in Animation oral
history in the UCLA Archives.

Becky Fallberg is survived by her daughter, TAG executive board member
Carla Fallberg, who was a character sculptor for 1999's Warner Bros.
feature film The Iron Giant.

Ron
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