Winston Hibler

Winston Hibler was a writer, director, producer, narrator, and Disney Legend who made numerous contributions to the glory days of The Walt Disney Studios from the 1940s until his death in 1976. His earliest official credit came as a story writer for Disney's animated musical take on the folk hero "Johnny Appleseed." Throughout the '50s, Hibler contributed as part of typically eight-man story writing teams for such animated Disney classics as "Cinderella," "Peter Pan," and "Sleeping Beauty"; he also composed songs heard in the latter two films. In 1954, "Hib," as he was known to his colleagues, began writing and directing for the inaugural season of "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color," the entertainment behemoth's early foray into television, which featured both animated and live-action biography programs. Hibler not only wrote and directed for the series but also produced and even narrated several episodes between the mid-'50s and mid-'70s. In 1955, still under the Disney umbrella, Hibler wrote, directed, and narrated the documentary short "Men Against the Arctic," which won an Academy Award for the studio. In addition to his projects for "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color," Hibler also produced numerous feature films for Disney throughout the '60s and '70s, among them the 1968 Dean Jones-starring family comedy, "The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit," and the 1974 drama "The Bears and I."