Disney Animator Ann Sullivan Passes Away From COVID-19

Ann Sullivan, an animator who worked on Disney films like The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, and Tarzan, has passed away from COVID-19-related complications after turning 91 recently (via Deadline).

She was a resident at The Motion Picture and Television Fund’s nursing facility, which had previously reported two COVID-19 deaths.

Sullivan’s other credits on IMDb include The Lion King, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan, Hercules, Fantasia 2000, The Emperor’s New Groove, Lilo & Stich, Treasure Planet, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and Home on the Range. She was credited as a painter on most of these films.

Sullivan was from Fargo, North Dakota. She studied at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design and joined Walt Disney in the 1950s, where she worked at their animation paint lab. She also had a stint at Hanna Barbera in the 1970s after a hiatus where she became a mother of four, before rejoining Walt Disney’s animation department. She retired in the early 2000s.