Adrienne Tytla, wife of famous Disney animator Vladimir ‘Bill’ Tytla, passed away yesterday from cancer. According to Disney spokesperson Howard Green, Tytle died at her farm in East Lyme, CT, the same one she and her husband bought back in 1942. She was 92. She is survived by her son, artist Peter Tytla and daughter Tamara Schacher-Tytla and granddaughter, Fantasia.
Adrienne le Clerc met her husband in 1936 when she was a 22-year-old actress and fashion model, posing in the art classes of Don Graham. She shared her husband’s excitable temperaments and noted, ‘My glass was half-filled with enthusiasm, his often half-empty with self-doubts. We were, however, definitely yin and yang,’ according to an entry in wikipedia.’ Their 30-year marriage began on April 21, 1938.
Last year, Tytla released her long awaited book Disney’s Giant, which focused on the life and career of her husband. The 1000-page-long tome is part-scrapbook, part-biography of her husband, who passed away in 1968.
One of the original Disney animators, Bill is considered by many to be the best character animator working during the Gold Age of Hollywood animation. He is credited for animation of Grumpy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Chernabog in Fantasia’s Night on Bald Mountain sequence and the magician Yen Sid in the film’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment. He also designed Dumbo, the big-eared baby elephant based on his own son, Peter.
To order Disney’s Giant, you can visit Peter’s website www.petertytla.com. To learn more about Tytla, visit www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/5308/tytla.html
