“Joe Hale, who spent 35 years as an animator, layout artist and producer at Disney and received an Oscar nomination for his effects work on the 1979 film The Black Hole, has died. He was 99. Hale died Jan. 29 of natural causes at his home in Atascadero, California, his wife of nearly 60 years”, — write: www.hollywoodreporter.com
Hale died Jan. 29 of natural causes at his home in Atascadero, California, his wife of nearly 60 years, Beverly Hale, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Hale started out as an inbetweener on Alice in Wonderland (1951) and worked on such other classics as Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), Mary Poppins (1964), The Jungle Book (1967), The Fox and the Hound (1981), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and Pete’s Dragon (1977).
In 1980, Hale was named a first-time producer on The Black Cauldron (1985), a project that had been languishing at Disney for about seven years, and he oversaw a staff of 300 artists — including a young Tim Burton — and a big budget of $44 million.
When some children found scenes in the dark fantasy disturbing during a test screening, new Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg ordered the film to be re-edited against Hale’s wishes, and its release was delayed from Christmas 1984 until the following July.
The Black Cauldron grossed less than $22 million at the box office, and Hale was fired from Disney in 1986.
‘The Black Cauldron’ Everett Collection
One of nine kids, Joseph Hale was born on June 4, 1925, in Newland Village, Indiana. He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945 during World War II.
He was nearby when his fellow soldiers planted a U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi. “We were dug in on the beach, and a friend of mine said, ‘Hey, look — they’re raising the flag up there,’” Hale recalled in 2015. “And I said, ‘Oh, OK, great’ — and kept digging.”
After his 3 1/2-year stint in the service, he attended the Michigan Academy of Arts and graduated from the Lukits Academy of Fine Arts in Los Angeles, then was hired at Disney in April 1951. Following Alice in Wonderland, he served as an assistant animator under Ollie Johnston, one of Disney’s legendary Nine Old Men.
Hale segued to the layout department in 1955, and while working on The Wonderful World of Disney and Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color TV programs, he got experience combining live action and animated characters.
He moved into animated special effects, working on such films as Return From Witch Mountain (1978), The Cat From Outer Space (1978), The Watcher in the Woods (1980) and The Black Hole, on which he served as animation special effects supervisor. He shared his Oscar nom with Peter Ellenshaw, Art Cruickshank, Eustace Lycett, Danny Lee and Harrison Ellenshaw (Peter’s son).
For The Black Cauldron, based on five mythological Chronicles of Prydain books by Lloyd Alexander, Hale was tasked with “trying to pull the whole thing together. So, that’s basically what I did,” he said in a 2010 interview.
After that film, Hale and his team began developing a film adaptation of T.H. White’s Mistress Masham’s Repose, a sequel to Gulliver’s Travels. Katzenberg didn’t like it, and Hale and his staff were laid off soon afterward.
In 2008, he was given an honorary Disney Legend Award by the National Fantasy Fan Club.
Hale did not work in Hollywood after Disney but spent a great deal of time as a sculptor, his wife said. Survivors also include his son, Steven, and his grandchildren, Camille and Travis.