Some shocking and very sad news from the world of animation arrived today. Ralph Eggleston, an Oscar-winning director, animator, art director and production designer Ralph Eggleston has died at the age of 56.
A native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Eggleston studied at CalArts and worked at both Warner Brothers and Amblin/Universal TV, where he met and collaborated with Brad Bird on his episode of Amazing Stories, Family Dog.
Credits on The Simpsons and creating the animated main title sequence for National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation followed, and he also contributed to movies such as FernGully, The Lion King, and Pocahontas.
Yet it would be at Pixar where he truly soared, joining the company before the production of Toy Story and becoming a vital part of the company's early movies' art and design. He worked on films such as A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles (where he reunited with Bird), Cars, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up, Inside Out, Incredibles 2 and Soul.
The company also gave him the chance to direct, and his much-loved short For The Birds ended up winning an Oscar in 2002. Eggleston won various other awards during his career, including several Annie Awards, the Winsor McCay Award for lifetime achievement in 2016 and the VIEW Visionary Award in 2019.
The gregarious, creative Eggleston also lent his talents to movies outside of his animation home, including DreamWorks Animation's The Road To El Dorado, and some Scooby-Doo titles for Warner Bros. When Andrew Stanton took on live-action for John Carter, he recruited Eggleston as a consultant.
His Pixar colleagues paid tribute to Eggleston, who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.