From Rags to Riches: The Making of Cinderella

John Canemaker has won an Academy Award, an Emmy and a Peabody Award for his animation and is an internationally-renowned animation historian and teacher. A key figure in American independent animation, Canemaker’s work has a distinctive personal style emphasizing emotion, personality and dynamic visual expression. His film, The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation, won an Oscar in 2005 for Best Animated Short, as well as an Emmy. A 28-minute autobiographical essay about a troubled father/son relationship, The Moon and the Son marked a personal and professional breakthrough in animation storytelling. Canemaker is also a noted author who has written nine books on animation, as well as numerous essays, articles and monographs for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications.

Polish-born German-American character animator, most noted for his work at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Deja's work includes serving as supervising animator on characters in several Disney animated films, including the Disney villains Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, Jafar from Aladdin, Scar from The Lion King and the hero Hercules from Hercules. -Wikipedia

Known for his work on Tangled (2010), The Little Mermaid (1989) and Pocahontas (1995). He has been married to Linda Hesselroth since 1975. They have two children.

Richard Morton Sherman (June 12, 1928 - May 25, 2024) was an American songwriter. He worked in musical movies with his brother Robert B. Sherman. Some of the Sherman Brothers' best known songs were in live action and animated musical films including: "Mary Poppins," "The Jungle Book," "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh," "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," "The Slipper and the Rose," and "Charlotte's Web." Their most well-known work is the theme park song "It's a Small World (After All)."

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O. Disney, he was co-founder of Walt Disney Productions, which later became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. The corporation is now now known as The Walt Disney Company and has annual revenues of approximately USD $35 billion. Disney is particularly noted as a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, for whom Disney himself provided the original voice. During his lifetime he received four honorary Academy Awards and won twenty-two Academy Awards from a total of fifty-nine nominations, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual in history.[citation needed] Disney also won seven Emmy Awards and gave his name to the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the United States, as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney, Disneyland Paris, and Disneyland Hong Kong. The year after his December 15, 1966 death from lung cancer in Burbank, California, construction began on Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. His brother Roy Disney inaugurated the Magic Kingdom on October 1, 1971. Description above from the Wikipedia article Walt Disney, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Prominent American artist and animator for Walt Disney Studios. He was one of Disney's Nine Old Men for his knowledge and understanding of visual aesthetics, the famed core animators of Disney animated films.

Garry Kent Marshall (November 13, 1934 – July 19, 2016) was an American actor, director, writer and producer. His notable credits include creating Happy Days and The Odd Couple and directing Nothing In Common, Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, Valentine's Day, and The Princess Diaries. Description above from the Wikipedia article Garry Marshall, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Disney animator, whose contributions to animation have included several Disney leading or title characters, most notably heroines. His work includes Princess Jasmine in Aladdin, Young Simba in The Lion King and Mulan in Mulan. He has also been animator of such films as 2007's Enchanted and the Goofy short How to Hook Up Your Home Theater. Additionally he directed the award-winning short film John Henry. Recently, he was the supervising animator of Princess Tiana in The Princess and the Frog.

Born in Palo Alto, California, Johnston attended Stanford University, where he worked on the campus humor magazine Stanford Chaparral with fellow future animator Frank Thomas, then transferred to the Chouinard Art Institute in his senior year.[5] Ollie married a fellow Disney employee, ink and paint artist Marie Worthey, in 1943.

While Kimball was a brilliant draftsman, he preferred to work on comical characters rather than realistic human designs. Animating came easily to him and he was constantly looking to do things differently. Because of this, Walt Disney called Ward a genius in the book The Story Of Walt Disney. While there were many talented animators at Disney, Ward's efforts stand out as especially unique.Kimball created several classic Disney characters including the Crows in Dumbo; Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland; the Mice and Lucifer the Cat from Cinderella; and Jiminy Cricket fromPinocchio. He also animated the famous "Three Caballeros" musical number from the Disney film of the same name.In 1953, Kimball became a director and was responsible for the Academy Award-winning short Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom, and three Disney television shows about outer space that put the United States into the space program. He received anAcademy Award for the short animated cartoon It's Tough to Be a Bird.Ward Kimball was profiled by the Academy Award-winning producer Jerry Fairbanks in his Paramount Pictures film short series Unusual Occupations. This 35mm Magnacolor film short was released theatrically in 1944 and focused on Kimball's backyard railroad and full sized locomotive.Kimball was also a jazz trombonist. He founded and led the seven-piece Dixieland band Firehouse Five Plus Two, in which he played trombone. The band made at least 13 LP records and toured clubs, college campuses and jazz festivals from the 1940s to early 1970s. Kimball once said that Walt Disney permitted the second career as long as it did not interfere with his animation work.Kimball continued to work at Disney up until the early 1970s, working on the Disney anthology television series, being one of the writers for Babes in Toyland, creating animation for Mary Poppins, directing the animation for Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and working on titles for feature films such as The Adventures Of Bullwhip Griffin and Million Dollar Duck. His last staff work for Disney was producing and directing the Disney TV show The Mouse Factory. He continued to do various projects on his own, even returning to Disney to do some publicity tours. Additionally, Kimball worked on an attraction for Disney's EPCOT Center called The World Of Motion.

Born in Fresno, California, Frank Thomas attended Stanford University, where he was a member of Theta Delta Chi fraternity and worked on campus humor magazine The Stanford Chaparral with Ollie Johnston. After graduating from Stanford, he attended Chouinard Art Institute, then joined The Walt Disney Company on September 24, 1934 as employee number 224. There he animated dozens of feature films and shorts, and also was a member of the Dixieland band Firehouse Five Plus Two, playing the piano.

One of Disney's Nine Old Men and considered the finest draughtsman of the Disney animators. He would often refine the characters sketches from Bill Peet with the ideas of Ken Anderson. For many years the final look for the characters in the Disney films were designed by Kahl, in his angular style inspired by Ronald Searle and Picasso.

Jacqueline Ruth Woods (May 5, 1929 – July 1, 2010), better known as Ilene Woods, was an American actress and singer.

Lucille Bliss (March 31, 1916 – November 8, 2012) was an American actress, known in the Bay Area and in Hollywood as the "Girl With a Thousand Voices". Bliss lent her voice to numerous television characters, including the title character of the very first made-for-television cartoon, Crusader Rabbit, Smurfette on the popular 1980s cartoon The Smurfs, and Ms. Bitters on the Nickelodeon animated series Invader Zim. In addition to her television roles, she was known for her work as a voice actress in feature films. [biography (excerpted) from Wikipedia]