To say he was a Disney Legend would be a horrible understatement, though he was officially named one in 1990.

With the passing of John Hench on February 5, the Walt Disney Company lost one of the final links to the Walt years. The rest of the world lost an artist who quietly contributed to a wonderful legacy in animation before conquering the theme park world.

John was 95 and had been employed by the company for nearly 65 years. Up to two weeks ago, he came to work every day at Walt Disney Imagineering in Glendale, where he was involved in the design of Disney's latest theme park in Hong Kong.

In fact, work on Disneyland Hong Kong wasn't the only thing John had been busy with lately. He recently collaborated with writer Peggy Van Pelt on Designing Disney: Imagineering and the Art of the Show, a book about his life and work.

Destino, a film that John Hench began collaboration on with Salvador Dali in 1946, was finally completed and released last year and is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Film: Animated.

Like he had done for Mickey's 25th, 50th, 60th and 70th birthdays, John once again served as the Mouse's corporate portrait artist with the creation of a painting for this year's 75th birthday, which will be re-created as a limited-edition lithograph.

Saturday, John was to be honored with the Winsor McCay Award in recognition of lifetime or career contributions to the art of animation presented by the International Animated Film Society at the 31st annual Annie Awards.

John began his animation career at Disney in 1939 in the story department before moving on to backgrounds, layout, art direction and effects animation on movies such as Fantasia, Dumbo, The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. He helped create the special effects on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which won an Academy Award in 1954.

John would be asked by Walt Disney to join the staff of WED Enterprises. "I want you to work on Disneyland, and you're going to like it," Walt said. John's first project was working on the creation of Tomorrowland. He would become one of Imagineering's chief designers and played a key role in the creation of every Disney theme park worldwide.

He would assist Disney in other projects as well. In 1960, John helped with the staging of the VIII Winter Olympic Games, including production of snow statues and the creation of the Olympic Torch, which nearly all versions since have patterned after. He also helped with the four exhibits Disney presented at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

John was born June 29, 1908 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He died of heart failure after a brief illness and hospitalization at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California. But in between, John Hench was personally involved in nearly every aspect of Walt Disney's entertainment empire. For those of us who visit a Disney theme park, we get to see it not only in the way that John helped design it but also in the way he enjoyed it himself.

"Walt always said, 'You get down to Disneyland at least twice a month and you walk in the front entrance, don't walk through the back. Eat with the people. Watch how they react to the work you've done down there.' This made an enormous difference in how we approaced our work."

"Other than Walt Disney himself, no one symbolizes The Walt Disney Company more than John Hench," said Marty Sklar, who worked with John for 48 years at Walt Disney Imagineering. "He was an accomplished artist, designer and stylist who had a tremendous influence not only on the movies and theme parks he worked on, but on the thousands of people he worked with during his many years with the company."

John is survived by his wife of 65 years, Lowry.

- Story by Matthew Walker; Photo ©Disney
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