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Animation Legend Mark Henn Retires After 43-Year Run At Disney

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Mark Henn, 65, a key animator at Disney in the studio’s modern era, retired from the company this week after 43 years.

Henn started his career at Disney in 1980 and, amazingly, never worked at another studio during this time. Quiet and unassuming, Henn hasn’t received as much attention as other Disney animation stars, but he has been deeply influential in defining the contemporary style of Disney animation and continuing the legacy of the studio’s original Nine Old Men crew of animators. He was known for being able to produce prodigious amounts of footage and for animating characters with sincerity, warmth, and restraint.

He was known as the lady’s man around the studio, having supervised five female leads, more than any other person in the history of the animation studio. Those characters were Ariel (which he supervised with Glen Keane), Belle (supervised with James Baxter), Jasmine, Mulan, and Tiana.

He gave life to each through careful observation and nuanced performances. For example, with Ariel, he took inspiration from the physical gestures of the character’s live-action model Sherri Stoner. “One of [those gestures],” he said, “was her habit of biting her bottom lip when she was intent on something. I used that, and the gesture made her personality real for a lot of people.”

Jasmine drawing by Mark Henn
Jasmine drawing by Mark Henn.

With Belle, he looked to Paige O’Hara, the character’s speaking and singing voice. Said Henn, “I was looking for a physical trademark for her personality, and one thing that struck me was the lock of hair that – no matter how much hairspray she uses – just won’t stay in place. So Paige just had an unconscious habit of continually brushing her hair out of her face. As I grew up with two sisters, and certainly observed them fixing or adjusting their hair, it seemed true-to-Belle to me to have her do that.”

He animated far more than just women though, also supervising young Simba in The Lion King and Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin in 2011’s Winnie the Pooh feature. Other animation credits include The Great Mouse Detective, The Rescuers Down Under, Lilo & Stitch (on which he did the famous hula dance sequence), and Home on the Range. Henn also directed the 2000 animated short film John Henry.

Mark Henn
Mark Henn caricature by Glen Keane, and Henn during the production of Aladdin.

Some of Henn’s biggest contributions to the studio though can’t be seen onscreen. When Disney launched a satellite studio in Orlando, Henn moved to Florida and spent the entirety of the Nineties there. The studio was originally envisioned as a secondary outpost for short-form production, but Henn’s presence and his drive for excellence quickly made it clear that the studio could handle feature production as well. As the star animator at the studio in the early Nineties, he took on more of a public role, even making an appearance on the sitcom Full House, which can be seen below:

The Orlando studio was a unique experiment for Disney and it complicated the logistics of production. For the iconic “A Whole New World” sequence in Aladdin, Jasmine and Aladdin were animated on opposite sides of the country, with Henn handling Jasmine in Florida and Glen Keane animating Aladdin in California. In the pre-internet era, this required careful coordination between the supervising animators, who often telephoned, faxed drawings, and overnight mailed drawings and discs of rough animation to each other.

By 2000, Henn had returned to Burbank, just in time for the studio’s transition to computer animation. This was an era of crisis for Henn, who tried to adapt to cg animation on Meet the Robinsons, but found the process to be too alien from his approach to traditional 2d animation. In an interview, he spoke about this dark period in his career:

From a spiritual point of view, from my world view, it was very eye-opening, because I didn’t realize how ingrained being at Disney and being a Disney animator [was] … the roots were so deep that when that got threatened, it really hurt. It really hurt. I remember I called a friend of mine and I was just in tears saying, ‘I don’t know what to do. This is all I know how to do.’

A testament to Henn’s talent and presence at Disney, the studio found ways to accommodate him in the cg era, either by finding him work on 2d sequences, like the Maui tattoos in Moana or on the hybrid film Enchanted. He also made countless contributions to short films (The Ballad of Nessie, Get a Horse!), special projects for the theme parks, and early character exploration and 2d sequences on the features.

More importantly, Henn took on the new role of mentor/coach at the studio. Starting on Frozen and continuing on films like Big Hero 6 and Ralph Breaks the Internet, Henn worked behind the scenes with the cg animators, offering suggestions to improve posing, timing, and performance.

Henn accepted the role of elder statesman gracefully, though in interviews, one could sense the frustration with no longer being involved in the day-to-day production of the studio’s features. In an interview on the Bancroft Brothers Animation Podcast, he explained his new job of mentor and how it differed from the role that Keane had had on Tangled:

The difference between [Keane’s] role and my role is that he could say, ‘This is what I want to see in the movie,’ because he was one of three [animation supervisors], whereas my role, I can’t necessarily say, ‘This is what I want to see,’ but I can say, ‘May I make a suggestion. I think this might be stronger if…’

Henn has not publicly revealed what he will do in his post-Disney life. Perhaps he will follow in the footsteps of other “retired” Disney veterans like Andreas Deja and John Musker and make a film of his own. He has his own personal creative passions too, like sculpting, which he has done for the last 25 years. One thing is for certain: he has been a towering figure in animation over the last four decades and a key part of the Disney studio’s success. The characters that he brought to life with his mighty pencil won’t be forgotten anytime soon.

Here’s what some of his co-workers have been saying this week upon the news of his official retirement from the studio:

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Amid Amidi

Amid Amidi is Cartoon Brew's Editor in Chief.

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