A 111-year-old painter who worked on famous Walt Disney Studios such as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” passed away Sunday, according to Variety.
Ruthie Tompson, born in Portland, Maine, on July 22, 1910, was raised in Boston, Mass. She moved with her family to California in 1918. They lived in Hollywood, near the Disney Bros. Cartoon Studio.
By the time she was 18, Thompson had a job at Dubrock’s Riding Academy in the San Fernando Valley, where Walt and Roy played polo. Walt eventually offered her a job as a painter in the Disney Ink and Paint Department, where she helped put the finishing touches on the studio’s first full-length animated feature, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, which was released in 1937.
Tompson would go on to work at the Walt Disney Company for nearly four decades before she retired in 1975. During her long career, Tompson was promoted to a final checker and scene planer, where she used skills in reviewing animation cels and guiding camera movement. She worked on well-known titles such as Pinocchio” (1940), “Fantasia” (1940), “Dumbo” (1941), “Sleeping Beauty” (1959), “Mary Poppins” (1964), “The Aristocats” (1970) and “Robin Hood” (1973).
Tompson’s last film was 1977’s “The Rescuers”.
She was named a Disney Legend in 2000 for being the employee who had the longest history with Walt and Roy O. Disney.
Filmmaker Leslie Iwerks said Tompson was the last person left who had known Walt Disney since his earliest Hollywood years, according to the Village News.
Additionally, Tompson was one of the first three women invited to join the International Photographers Union, Local 659 of the IATSE, in 1952.
Mindy Johnson, Disney historian and author of “Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney's Animation,” described Tompson as “remarkable,” and a trailblazer in the field of animation.
“Have fun,” Tompson told Disney around her 110th birthday.
“Try to do as much as you can for yourself. Remember all the good things in life.”
She spent her last days at the Motion Picture and Television Fund in Woodland Hills, Calif. Tompson is survived by two nieces, Judy Weiss and Calista Tonelli, and a nephew, Pierce Butler III.
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