Disney visual effects man Eustace Lycett dies

Posted:
Mar 12, 2007

Veteran Disney effects artist Eustace Lycett, who shared Academy Awards for special visual effects in the partly animated Mary Poppins (1964) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks(1971), died November 16 in Fullerton, California, Variety announced Monday. His age was not immediately available.

"His death was only now reported," the trade paper stated.

Director of special visual effects at the Mouse House for much of his 43-year Disney career, Lycett had animated characters interact with live-action actors in Bedknobs and Broomsticks. He also had star Angela Lansbury's character fly on a broom and brought suits of armor and medieval weapons to life.

In all, Lycett worked on 37 Disney feature films.

He shared Oscar nominations for two live-action pictures: in special effects for The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) and visual effects for The Black Hole (1979). His honors for Mary Poppins and The Black Hole were shared with, among others, Peter Ellenshaw, who died February 12 this year.

Lycett also created special effects for Disney's Song of the South (1946), Sleeping Beauty (1959), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) and Pete's Dragon(1977). In Sleeping Beauty and One Hundred and One Dalmatians, he worked alongside the legendary Ub Iwerks.

His Disney shorts and featurettes included the partly animated documentary Cosmic Capers (1957), along with Donald In Mathmagic Land (1959) and Scrooge McDuck And Money(1967).

Among his live-action Disney films were 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Shaggy Dog, Darby O'Gill and the Little People, Swiss Family Robinson and The Love Bug. He worked on such Disneyland attractions as "Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln," "Rocket to the Moon" and the Circle-Vision 360 theater.

Lycett was born in Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. As a child, he traveled widely with his father, an English mining engineer. In 1933, his family moved permanently to the United States.

In 1937, he graduated from the California Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering. That year, he joined Disney's engineering department.

His first task was to design and modify camera equipment -- specifically, to help build the multi-plane camera for giving depth to animated films. Other Disney staff members who helped create it received a special Scientific and Technical Academy Award.

After the Second World War, Lycett became an assistant to Iwerks. They set up and supervised Disney's optical printers for movies that combined live action and animation. Besides Song of the South, they collaborated on such hybrid feature films as The Three Caballeros(1945) and So Dear To My Heart(1949).

When Iwerks went into research and development in 1957, Lycett was named the head of the Special Processes Department at Disney. In his new role, he worked on such films as The Parent Trap, The Gnome-Mobile, Blackbeard's Ghost, Now You See Him, Now You Don't and The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.

Iwerks died in 1971. Lycett replaced him as Disney's head of R & D.

Becoming head of the Photographic Effects Department at Disney, Lycett continued at that job until he retired after finishing composite work on The Black Hole.

Eustace Lycett was predeceased in 2004 by his Mary Ethel, his wife of 67 years. He is survived by four sons, eight grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.