Longtime Disney Animator Jane Baer Passes Away at 91

We at Laughing Place are sad to report the passing of a longtime Disney animator named Jane Baer, who left us this week at the age of 91.

Jane Baer (whose full name was Jane Shattuck-Takamoto-Baer) began her career with Walt Disney Animation Studios as a key clean-up artist on Sleeping Beauty in the 1950s, working alongside the fabled Nine Old Men. She then left Disney for a time to work for other animation studios, returning to the company in the mid-1970s to become an assistant animator on The Rescuers. Then she served in the same role on Pete's Dragon in 1977, The Black Cauldron in 1985, and The Great Mouse Detective in 1986. For 1988's Who Framed Roger Rabbit she became a coordinating animator for additional animation, and then served as both an animation producer and assistant animator on the subsequent Roger Rabbit short Tummy Trouble.

Baer's other works for Disney include 1990's The Prince and the Pauper starring Mickey Mouse and even 1991's Beauty and the Beast, on which she once again served as an assistant animator. Outside of Disney, Baer contributed to the animation in The Beautician and the Beast for Paramount, Last Action Hero for Columbia, Rover Dangerfield for Warner Bros., and Fletch Lives for Universal. She and her husband Dale Baer founded Baer Animation in 1984, which became a successful independent animation house that partnered with other studios, including Disney, for many of the above-listed titles. For example, Baer Animation was responsible for creating the Toontown sequence in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. She will be missed.