Joe Hale, a longtime animator, artist and producer at Disney, died January 29 at his home in Atascadero, California of natural causes at age 99. His wife of nearly 60 years, Beverly Hale, shared the news of his passing with The Hollywood Reporter.
Born June 4, 1925 in Newland Village, Indiana, Hale was one of nine children. Like many animators of his generation, he enlisted in the military and served during World War II with the U.S. Marine Corps, fighting at the Battle of Iwo Jima. After his service, he attended the Michigan Academy of Arts and then graduated form the Lukits Academy of Fine Arts in L.A.
Hale spent 35 years at Disney feature animation, getting his start as an in-betweener on Alice in Wonderland (1951), before being assigned as an assistant animator under Ollie Johnston, one of the studio’s famous Nine Old Men. He worked as an animator and layout artist on many of the studio’s enduring hand-drawn classics, including Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), The Jungle Book (1967) and The Fox and the Hound (1981), as well as the live-action/animation hybrid features Mary Poppins (1964), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and Pete’s Dragon (1977).
Hale applied his hybrid production skills, first honed on the midcentury television programs The Wonderful World of Disney and Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, to effects animation on live-action features including Return from Witch Mountain (1978), The Cat from Outer Space (1978), The Watcher in the Woods (1980) and The Black Hole (1979), for which he was nominated for an Oscar for special effects alongside Peter Ellenshaw and his son Harrison Ellenshaw, Art Cruickshank, Eustace Lycett and Danny Lee.
In 1980, Hale became a producer for the first time on the ill-fated The Black Cauldron, charged with assembling the five Chronicles of Prydain books by Lloyd Alexander into an overarching story and overseeing a 300-artist staff on the dark fantasy adaptation.
The project had been in the works for seven years and racked up a $44 million budget. Then studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg ordered a re-edit against Hale’s wishes when some young test screeners found a few scenes unsettling, delaying the release from Christmas 1984 to July of 1985. The film grossed less than $22 million. Hale and his team began developing an adaptation of T.H. White’s Mistress Masham’s Repose (a sequel to Gulliver’s Travels), but Katzenberg didn’t bite and Hale was dismissed in 1986, along with his staff.
According to his wife, Hale avoided Hollywood after his long Disney career, but remained creatively active as a sculptor.
Hale was inducted as a Disney Legend by the National Fantasy Fan Club in 2008.
The deceased is survived by his wife, Beverly; son, Steven; and two grandchildren.
[source: The Hollywood Reporter]
Win 'The Art of DreamWorks Dog Man'! 
