Harold Ambro; Disney Animator

Harold (Hal) Ambro, an animator who worked on dozens of the classic Walt Disney films in the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s, has died.

He was 76 when he died Feb. 1 of an undisclosed illness at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills.

Ambro’s work at the Charles Mintz studio in Hollywood caught the eye of the Disney Studios, where he was hired in 1939.

He went on to work on such animated films as “Song of the South,” “Make Mine Music,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Peter Pan,” “Lady and the Tramp,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” and “Gay Purr-ee.”

Born in St. Louis, Ambro moved to California in 1932 to study drawing. He left Disney in 1966 after drawing for “The Sword and the Stone.” He then worked on television specials and Hanna-Barbera’s production of “Charlotte’s Web.”

Ambro became Hanna-Barbera’s supervising animator for “Heidi’s Song” before he left in 1982. The next year, Ambro began teaching character animation at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia.