Recap: Animation Royalty Descends Upon Hollywood to Pay Tribute to Roger Allers
On Monday night, family, friends, and a veritable Animation Hall of Fame (and me, somehow) descended upon the David Geffen Theatre at the Academy Museum in Hollywood, California to pay respects to the late Roger Allers in a celebration of life for the legendary artist who passed away earlier this year. The Academy Museum and the David Geffen Theatre were the perfect venue, as Allers was an Oscar-nominated member of the Academy.
As is the case in the world of animation and its many artists, you might not recognize his name - but you absolutely know his work. Roger Allers was an animator, a story artist, a writer, a director, and was a key creative force of the iconic Disney Renaissance of the 80s and 90s. "Part of Your World" in The Little Mermaid looks the way it does because Allers storyboarded the sequence. The theatrical energy of "Be Our Guest" in Beauty and the Beast? All because Allers put his stamp on those boards too. Despite all his work at Disney - dating back to Oliver and Company and extending through the early 2000s - he is largely recognized as the co-director of the cultural phenomenon that is The Lion King.
Outside of Disney animation, his work includes animation on Lisberger's Animalympics, and even early work on TRON. He spent time in Japan working on Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, and after Disney - directing Sony's first feature-length animated film, Open Season. He also teamed up with nine different animation directors for a feature in 2014, leading the charge as the writer and director of a feature comprised of animated adaptations of poems from Kahlil Gibran's 1923 book of the same name, The Prophet.
Allers tragically passed away in January of this year at the age of 76, with the celebration of his life held earlier this week. Hosted by his daughter Leah and family friend Sir Tim Rice, family, friends, and colleagues all gathered together inside the David Geffen Theatre to look back fondly on their relationships with Roger and celebrate the joy that was knowing him. The program was organized nicely, sentimentally, and presented chronologically based on his career with special performances throughout. Leah - an actress and filmmaker herself - happens to also be working on a documentary celebrating her father, which offered a plethora of archival footage to present throughout the celebration and video messages from some of his closest friends and colleagues who couldn't be there.
While not all of them took the stage, many of Roger's contemporaries and colleagues showed up to pay tribute to their departed friend, turning any picture of the crowd into something worthy to hang in a museum. Animation Legends like John Musker, Ron Clements, Kirk Wise, Gary Trousdale, Andreas Deja, and countless others could be seen milling amongst the crowd, sharing stories and memories of Roger with friends and anyone with an open ear. In fact, that's largely what the event was.
Split into chapters, Roger's life was celebrated as his career and family life progressed. Starting with humorous home movies from his youth, where you can see a knack for storytelling in its earliest phases, we move into meeting the people who would help launch his career. This also included a video message from TRON director Steve Lisberger, who shared memories about how he pulled Roger to LA with him, working on Animalympics and how Roger was the one that kept encouraging him to take on TRON - though by the time TRON really got into production, Roger had jumped to Disney Animation and was working on Oliver & Company.
Throughout the whole celebration, there were plenty of laughs that were balanced by sweet, emotional moments as well. Darrell Rooney and Bill Kroyer (who worked with Roger on Animalympics) shared fun stories then packed a tearful wallop when they used animation timing sheets contextually, saying Roger's timing was never off until the one time it was - last January when he passed - saying, that's the only time his timing had been off and it was a little too early. Where's the tissue?
This same idea carried over through more stories shared by colleagues who took the stage, like John Musker and Ron Clements, Brenda Chapman, Rob Minkoff, former Disney Animation head and current Disney Theatrical president Tom Schumacher, and more. The one common thread amongst every person regaling the audience with their memories of Roger was how authentic he was. Whether it was his loud leopard print shorts or brightly colored shirts that nearly everyone mentioned, or words of wisdom and advice that could probably be assembled into its own book based on the stories.
While all the video messages were powerful in their own way, the one that really stuck with me was a message from Lebo M - who helped with the music of The Lion King. Lebo was brought onto the project by composer Hans Zimmer thanks to their existing relationship, and he regaled the crowd with a story about meeting the team behind the film he would be working on (The Lion King), commenting that after talking with everyone the only person who he met that day would be the man he would come to learn was named Roger, because he was the only one that Lebo truly felt was being his true, authentic self. As such, they remained friends over the following decades. While there were some choice words Lebo used to great comedic effect (that I won't repeat here) the weight of the sentiments was there and could be felt throughout the theater.
In fact, many of the stories shared were deeply personal and I feel I could never do them justice recounting them here so for many I won't even try. Because of the nature of these stories, along with the video messages and other archival footage, filming and photography weren't allowed during the celebration. So I couldn't accurately quote them if I tried. But one quote did stick with me, a piece of advice that was given to one of the speakers about going out on a limb, out to the thinnest weakest part of the branch. The speaker asked, "What happens when that little limb breaks?" Roger replied, "Baby, that's when you FLY."
As an animation fan, the whole night was incredible but especially intriguing when we got to a special portion of the evening focused on Kingdom of the Sun - Roger's project that would eventually shift and morph into what would inevitably become The Emperor's New Groove - without Roger's involvement. Moments from the infamously "banned" documentary The Sweatbox were shown featuring Roger and the whole of Yzma's song, "Snuff Out The Light." Notably (for anyone who has seen it), without the tracking numbers on the bottom. This prompted me to joke that this was the real reason that no video or photography were allowed. Matthew Jacobs and Ben Gluck, who worked with Roger early on in the project shared their memories with Jacobs sharing that he has the first draft of the story still and is a prized possession to this day.
The stories and videos were also broken up by musical performances. Disney Legend Jodi Benson appeared on stage to enchant the audience with a performance of "Part of Your World," as Roger storyboarded that original sequence. Later, Sir Time Rice introduced singers Casey Elliott and Melanie Taylor, who performed "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" from The Lion King before another performance introduced by Tom Schumacher, featuring Darian Sanders (from the touring performance of The Lion King) performing "Endless Night" - appropriate since Roger wrote the book for stage adaptation of The Lion King.
Andreas Deja's reflections on Roger were shared featuring this very topic, as Deja explained that he would do lunch with Roger and hear all about the development and laughed off the idea of performers wearing the characters heads above their own...until he saw it in person. The Lion King stage adaptation would also serve as the most emotional moment of the night, as Leah and her brother, Roger's son Aidan, took to the stage and shared Roger's most important job - being a father. Their special tribute culminated with a performance of "He Lives In You" performed by Charles Jones and The Lion King Choir that was uplifting, emotional, and inspirational all at once.
On a personal note, I don't know how I ended up at the Celebration of Life for Roger Allers. Especially when compared to everyone else I noticed in attendance. I had never worked with him, I have never interviewed him, and I - at best - walked by him and said "oh that's Roger Allers" at an Animation-based event. I just knew of and am a fan of his large body of work and how it shaped my entire generation and the others that followed. It was a true honor to be in attendance, and hearing the stories of everyone there and the love, positivity, and wisdom that was shared was truly inspiring and that is something that will carry with everyone in theater that night, regardless whether or not they met Roger personally.