Carl Bell, the American animator of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, is dead

March 31 2022

Word is circulating in the Hollywood animation community that animator Carl Angus Bell, a prolific artist whose 41-year career has taken him through various productions, from UPA to Disney, from Filmation to Bakshi, has recently passed away. Details of Bell's death were not reported. According to friends in the industry, he was 91 years old.

Bell grew up in suburban Toronto and honed his art at Ontario College of Art. In these early days, he met lifelong friend and colleague Richard Williams. In the early 50s he moved to New York City, where he met Bill Tytla, whose advice to study art in Europe and then head to Los Angeles "where most of the animation business is located" set the course of the Bell's career. The young artist began working on commercials in London before moving to Los Angeles in 1958.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Touchstone / Amblin / Silver Screen Partners, 1988)

On the west coast, Bell worked at the iconic mid-century studio UPA as it was nearing completion, and went on to work with several industry titans, including Bob Clampett (in Matty's Funnies with Beany & Cecil), Chuck Jones (The Pogo Special Birthday Special), Abe Levitow (The Wizard of Id and BC specials) - and both Jones and Levitow in the animated sequences of The Phantom Tollbooth (1970). In the late 70s, he reconnected with Williams as the Los Angeles production coordinator on Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure; friends later worked together on Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Lord of the Rings (1978; courtesy of Ralph Bakshi on Twitter)

The next phase of Bell's vast artistic output took him to the independent studio of Ralph Bakshi, animating the films The Lord of the Rings (1978), American Pop (1981), Hey Good Lookin '(1982) and Fire and Ice (1983). According to animator / historian Tom Sito, who first met Bell in Raggedy Ann & Andy and describes him as "a lovely and kind man," the late animator commemorated his time in LOTR with a custom plaque "FRODO " for many years.

Sito also worked with Bell at the prolific Filmation studio in the 80s, where Bell lent his expert hand to TV favorites He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Ghostbusters, She-Ra: Princess of Power, and BraveStarr. After the award-winning Roger Rabbit, Bell remained at Disney Animation as a cleaner / middleman and assistant character animator in the beloved 2D films Oliver & Company (1988), The Little Mermaid (1989), Rescuers in the Shadows (1990), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Mulan (1998) and Tarzan (1999).

Hercules (Disney, 1997)

Bell also contributed to the art form by serving as Governor of the animation and short film branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

You can learn more about Bell's long and extraordinary career in the two-part podcast interview with The Animation Guild here. Bell's friend, Andreas Welles-Therhorn, also created a beautiful video memoir four years ago, Carl Bell - A Life in Animation, which you can watch on Vimeo (45 min.)

[Sources: Animation Scoop, Tom Sito, IMDb]

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