Glen Keane
Biography
Glen Keane has worked as an animator, director, illustrator and author, and is best known for his long tenure at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Born in Philadelphia and raised in Arizona, he took up drawing after watching his father, the cartoonist Bil Keane, at work. Hired by Disney in 1974, he spent close to four decades there animating characters, among them Ariel in The Little Mermaid (1989), the title roles in Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Pocahontas, and Tarzan. He won an Annie Award in 1992 for character animation and the Winsor McCay Award in 2007 for his contribution to animation, and was named a Disney Legend in 2013. After leaving the studio in 2012 he directed the animated short Dear Basketball (2017), which brought him and Kobe Bryant an Academy Award, and the Chinese feature Over the Moon (2020), released by Netflix. He has also written and illustrated children's books.
72years old
Turns 73 on April 13in 191 days
- Born Philadelphia
- Star sign: AriesThe sign runs March 21 to April 19
Movie Career
- Films
- 6
- Career span
- 25 years1995 to 2020
Genres
- Documentary67%, 4 films
- Music33%, 2 films
- Adventure17%, 1 film
- Animation17%, 1 film
- Biography17%, 1 film
First and latest
Share
Did you know?!
Early training
Keane's application went by mistake to the Program in Experimental Animation, then known as Film Graphics, and Jules Engel became his mentor there.
A first
Keane worked with John Lasseter on a 30-second test of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are in 1982, inspired by Tron. Disney executive Tom Wilhite optioned it, and the test blended traditional character animation with computer-generated backgrounds, Disney's first try at digitally-drawn characters.
A first
Keane released Duet, his first animated short, at the Google I/O Conference in San Francisco on June 25, 2014. The hand-drawn cartoon runs at 60 frames per second, a first for that style of animation.
Behind the award
Keane directed Dear Basketball in 2017, an animated short based on a retirement poem Kobe Bryant wrote for The Players' Tribune. Keane and Bryant won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 90th Academy Awards.
First role
In 1974 Keane joined Disney after leaving CalArts. During three years there, he worked with Ollie Johnston, a veteran animator, on Bernard and Penny in The Rescuers.
Glen Keane movies on Netflix
Best known for
The films on Netflix they are best known for, with the part played in each.
- Over the Moon2020 Adventure, Animation, Family, Fantasyas Space Dog / Rail Worker #3voice
IMDb rating 6.327K votes
Most often with
Don Hahn directed two of these films. Two actors appear in three of them each. Pick a number on the chart or a name in the list to see the films they share.
Films together
Don Hahn's page
Rob Minkoff's page
John Lasseter's page
Jeffrey Katzenberg's page
Gary Trousdale's page
Ollie Johnston's page
Also two films together5 more actors
- Frank ThomasThe Pixar Story (2007) and Frank and Ollie (1995)
- John MuskerWaking Sleeping Beauty (2009) and The Pixar Story (2007)
- Roger AllersHoward (2018) and Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009)
- Ron ClementsWaking Sleeping Beauty (2009) and The Pixar Story (2007)
- Thomas SchumacherHoward (2018) and Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009)
When several people share the same number of films, the ones with the most films on Netflix are in the chart.
Awards
Three awards and honors from 2013 to 2018, one of them major.
| Year | Award | Film | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards | |||
| 2018 | Best Animated Short Film | Dear Basketball | Won |
| Other honors | |||
| 2017 | Reuben Award | Won | |
| 2013 | Disney Legends | Honored | |
Online
Official profiles and reference pages.