95-Year-Old Homeless Disney Animator

I love feel-good stories like the one that ran in yesterday’s MONTREAL GAZETTE (the article is unfortunately not online). The piece is about Jack Dunham, a 95-year-old former animation artist who gave up his apartment last month. Both he and his wife are homeless now. The article doesn’t explain whether he was forcibly evicted from his home or not, but it’s still depressing as hell. In the 1930s, Dunham worked at Disney and Lantz. I can’t find any record of him at Disney because he was probably only an assistant, but he’s in this early-1930s Lantz photo. Here’s an excerpt from the piece:

[Dunham] created the St. Hubert Chicken [St. Hubert Bar B-Q is a chain of restaurants in Québec, the first restaurant being on St. Hubert St.; the chicken is shown on their webpage]. But Dunham, a former Walt Disney Studios artist, is old and a bit frail now; instead of throwing the bawk-bawk-bawk at him, perhaps we should forgive Dunham his red-thatched trespasses.

He’ll be 96 in September. Where he’ll be celebrating his birthday is uncertain, because Dunham and Dorothy Stewart, the former New York fashion model to whom he’s been married for 51 years, are homeless.

Since giving up their St. Marc St. apartment in early February, the Dunhams have been staying at St. Luc Hospital. Social service agencies are trying to place the couple in a care facility, but that could take awhile.

The article also has this priceless quote from Dunham: “I was 6-foot-4 as a teenager and I was still 6-foot-4 when I was 90. But then I started to lose height. I’m about 6 feet, and I weight 125 pounds, down from 250 when I was 90. I told my wife that at this rate, she’ll be able to carry me around in her purse.”

(Thanks, Craig)