Floyd Norman was the first Black animator hired by the Walt Disney Animation Studios, a legacy that will remain cemented in time. He was featured in a documentary, “Floyd Norman: An Animated Life” in 2016.
Norman was born June 22, 1935 in Santa Barbara, Calif., a far cry from the Jim Crow South that he experienced later as a boy. Without the overt racism that was prevalent throughout much of America at the time, Norman grew up in a relatively sheltered environment which fueled his imagination.
In 1956, Norman received a big break in his career when Disney hired him as a part-time animator when he was just 21. Prior to this, Norman worked as a cartoonist’s assistant. The first film Norman worked on was “Sleeping Beauty,” released in 1959. Other early works that employed Norman’s expertise was the original “Jungle Book,” “101 Dalmatians” and other smaller films. (READ MORE)
