An animator, Davis was one of the “nine old men,” the cartoonists at Walt Disney’s animation studio assembled to work on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in the 1930s.
Davis was an apprentice on Snow White, and stayed at Disney to become one of the visionaries. He had a penchant for female characters: he designed Alice (Alice in Wonderland), Tinker Bell (Peter Pan), Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty), Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty) and Cruella De Vil (101 Dalmatians). Later, he designed characters and scenes in Disneyland rides “Pirates of the Caribbean”, “It’s a Small World”, and “Jungle Cruise”. Davis died January 12 in Glendale, Calif., at age 86.