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Don Lusk

American animator and director

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ3035823
Source-derived summary

Donald Ross "Don" Lusk (October 28, 1913 – December 30, 2018) was an American animator and director.

Lusk joined Walt Disney Productions in 1933 and remained there until 1960, animating on most of the studio's features of the period, among them Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp and One Hundred and One Dalmatians. He interrupted that work to serve in the United States Marine Corps animation unit during World War II.

After leaving Disney he worked briefly for Walter Lantz Productions and then moved into direction, working on the Peanuts television specials for Bill Melendez and, from 1961, at Hanna-Barbera, where he directed episodes of series including The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo and The Smurfs. He received the Winsor McCay Award for lifetime achievement in 2014 and, by the time of his death at 105, was the last surviving animator from Disney's golden age.

Early life

Donald Ross Lusk was born on October 28, 1913, in Burbank, a suburb of Los Angeles, California to Perceval Knox Lusk and Louise Opie Ross Parrish, who were married in 1908 in California. He served in the United States Marine Corps for three years, during World War II, in its newly created Animation Unit.

Career

Lusk was hired by The Walt Disney Company in 1933 as an Inbetweener. His first film as an animator was 1938's Ferdinand the Bull adapted from 1936's The Story of Ferdinand by author Munro Leaf. He worked on Pinocchio, Fantasia (The Nutcracker Suite and The Pastoral Symphony Segments), Bambi, Song of the South, Melody Time, So Dear to My Heart, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty and One Hundred and One Dalmatians.

Editorial summary

“Don Lusk” enters the record as american animator and director. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Lusk, American and animator can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1913, 2018, 1933, 1960—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1913-10-28. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Lusk, American and animator.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Don Lusk” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Lusk, American and animator provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3035823. VIAF identifies the subject as 66658748. The Library of Congress control number is no92009154. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1913, 2018, 1933 and 1960.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Don Lusk”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Don Lusk primary sources, Don Lusk archive and Lusk research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Don Lusk” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.