Above, left to right: Homer Jonas, Walt Peregoy, unidentified, Tony Rizzo, Ralph Hulett and Ray Aragon.
Designer, layout and storyboard artist Ray Aragon died on March 15 at the age of eighty-three.
After serving in WWII, Aragon attended Chouinard on the GI Bill where he met Marc Davis, who recommended him to Disney where he began in the layout department on Sleeping Beauty, later working on 101 Dalmatians.
Among the other studios he worked for were UPA, Format, Eagle, Fred Calvert, Hanna-Barbera, TMS, Sanrio, Tom Carter, Filmation and Warner Bros. His subsequent feature credits included Gay Purr-ee, Yellow Submarine, the Hanna-Barbera Charlotte's Web, Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland and The Iron Giant. In the 1980s he taught at CalArts.
(As a small kid, I saw a lot of Mr. Aragon. Being in the Disney background department, Ray came up to a lot of my parent's parties in La Crescenta, of which they had quite a few. Years later as Business Representative, I ran into Ray again. His hair had gone white but outside of that, he hadn't changed very much. He was still a vibrant, classy guy I'd remembered from my childhood. -- Steve Hulett)
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3 comments:
I had the pleasure of working with Ray on the Tom & Jerry Movie at Film Roman in '91. Phil talked Ray out of retirement to help with layout. Vibrant and classy are the right words to describe Ray, no need to mention extremely talented.
A classy guy, is right. Ray Aragon was all that and more.
This is what it was like when I arrived at Disney in the fifties. Imagine being surrounded by talent like this. Homer, Walt, Tony, Ralph and Ray. What lucky kids we were to have guys like this as our mentors.
My Uncle Ray was both an inspiration and encouragement to me. His art and life stories will remain with me for a lifetime, Gracias Tio!!
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