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The New Sorcerer’s Apprentice

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Nine years ago, Julio Leon was a class-cutting, back-talking high school senior who showed up at a student training program at the Walt Disney Co. studios in Burbank with a portrait he had drawn of himself.

The picture resembled a police mug shot, complete with bars and a booking number, and Disney executives interpreted it as a sign that Leon thought prison was his destiny.

But instead of jail cells, Leon’s life today revolves around animation cels--cartoon celluloid images. During the Disney training program, his sketches, with their distinctive graffiti flavor, caught the attention of a veteran animator who encouraged Leon to study drawing. Two years ago, Leon was hired as a cartoon artist at Disney, making good money in the job of his dreams.

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Now he wants to pass it along.

As part of the same Disney mentoring program that rescued him, Leon, 26, is mentoring a youngster cut from similar cloth. Anthony Hein is a high school sophomore with patchy grades, an eye for graffiti and a notebook brimming with vibrant sketches. He is thrilled to be paired with Leon.

Hein and Leon are among this year’s matches between Monterey High School in Burbank and employees at Disney. Each spring, 10 students get an opportunity to shadow Disney mentors and add a few lines to their resumes, while Disney has a chance to get its hands on talent while it is young and can still be shaped.

So far, Disney has hired a handful of students from the program, although Leon is the first animator.

Leon may be streetwise, but he does not like to broadcast where he came from. He grew up in Burbank, got kicked out of school in the 10th grade for fighting and skipping class, and ended up at Monterey High, a continuation school for students who fall behind.

At Monterey, he excelled in art.

“Julio was the chrome man,” said Peggy Zirves, his art teacher at Monterey. “Everything he drew, people, wood, outside scenes, looked like they were chrome. He obviously had a passion for drawing.”

Leon was chosen to participate in the first year of Disney’s mentoring program, an important turning point in his life. Afterward, he received a $1,000 scholarship from the entertainment giant to take private art classes, which helped him compile the portfolio he needed to land an animation job.

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Although Disney employees reach out to hundreds of local students every year in various ways, the mentoring program is the only one that gives young people a chance to learn a trade and peek into the top-secret Disney workplace. (Reporters must sign agreements not to reveal what they see before they can set foot in the animation building.)

In that building, it’s difficult to miss Hein. In the warren of hushed cubicles and clean-cut faces, Hein--with pants ripped at the bottom and T-shirt stretched tight across the belly--doesn’t exactly blend in. His haircut makes him look like a tarantula is sitting atop his head, with his skull shaved bald except for a few strands of bangs slathered down with mousse.

“Nobody else in the school has it,” he said of his hairstyle.

During the job mentoring program, Hein met Leon twice a week in a cubicle covered with drawings for “Tarzan,” Disney’s animated feature scheduled for release this summer. Leon has been drawing “Tarzan” backgrounds for the last two years--too long for Hein.

“I couldn’t be in a ‘cue’ [cubicle] looking at the same drawings for two years,” Hein said. “It’s like jail.”

Hein, 19, (who is old for his grade level because of many failed classes) is not sure what he wants to do when he finishes school. Maybe mix music, perhaps work in a record shop, or strive for an animating job such as Leon’s, where starting pay is more than $60,000 a year.

That figure is still the stuff of legend among those who knew Leon at Monterey High.

“That’s our big joke,” said Zirves, the art teacher. “Here’s a kid who thought he would end up in jail or pushing a janitor’s cart. And look at him now. He’s already making more money than the rest of us.”

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