Hamilton Luske

Esteemed animation director Hamilton Luske got his start as an animator in 1934 working on a string of Disney shorts. This proved the start of a long and storied career at the legendary animation studio. Luske eventually made the transition to feature-length films as a supervising director on the Oscar-winning classic "Pinocchio," which famously brought to life the story of the little wooden boy who wished to be human. Luske built his directing reputation helming segments of full-length pieces, like "The Pastoral Symphony" sequence of the animated anthology "Fantasia," and the cartoon section of the behind-the-scenes family comedy "The Reluctant Dragon." After paying his dues, Luske broke through in 1950 with the gloriously realized fairy tale "Cinderella," on which he served as one of three directors, a common practice in animated features. He went on to co-direct such popular and acclaimed animated films as "Alice in Wonderland," "Peter Pan," and "Lady and the Tramp," which starred two star-crossed lovers who happened to be dogs. In a career that stretched over three decades, Luske contributed to some of the most heralded animations in film history. In 1965, he earned an Oscar for his work on the mixed-media family film "Mary Poppins," in which cartoon animals scamper among live-action actors in a world Luske helped define. Fittingly, his last screen credit was as director on the anthology series "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color."