list_text=          Animator Vladimir Tytla, nicknamed "Bill" by his friends and family, brought unprecedented depth, feeling and personality to Disney characters, so much so that today he is considered "Animation's Michelangelo." Among the artist's most famed  masterpieces are Stromboli, the evil puppeteer in "Pinocchio;" Chernabog, the menacing, winged devil featured in "Fantasia;" and the human-like baby elephant in "Dumbo."
          As fellow Disney Legends Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston recalled in their book The Disney Villain, "Everything was 'feelings' with Bill... He did not just get inside Stromboli, he was Stromboli and he lived the part."
          Animator Eric Larson observed Bill's intensity and "all-out sincerity. He'd act out a scene in his room and I thought the walls would fall in."
          Born October 25, 1904, in Yonkers, New York, Bill won a job at age 16, lettering title cards at the Paramount animation studio and later accepted an artist's position at Paul Terry's animation studio. Fascinated with the fine arts, he later enrolled in New York's Art Students League and in 1929, traveled to Paris to study painting. He returned to Terry Studios the next year, but was unhappy when, in 1932, his friend and colleague animator Art Babbitt moved on to Hollywood to work for Disney. After many invitations from Art, Bill finally took a trip west and joined The Walt Disney Studios on a 'trial basis' in November 1934.
          During his "probationary" year, Bill's versatile acting ability became apparent when he animated a broadly comic Clarabelle Cow in the short "Mickey's Fire Brigade" and a bully rooster dancing the carioca in "Cock O' The Walk." 
          As a result of his genius, Bill was soon tapped to take on the challenge of developing (along with Freddy Moore) and animating the dwarfs in Disney's first full-length animated feature "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." A perfectionist, Bill made sure that even in mob scenes, each dwarf performed strictly according to his own unique personality.
          After the astounding success of "Snow White," Bill became one of the Studio's highest-paid animators, earning over $300 a week. His supreme moment in animation remains Chernabog, the god of evil in "Fantasia," whose emotions range from unabashed evil to the expression of physical pain when he hears the church bells ring at dawn. Other films he contributed to include "Saludos Amigos" and "Victory Through Air Power," as well as the war-themed short "Education for Death."
          In 1943, Bill left Disney to animate theatrical shorts for other studios and to direct television commercials. Among his non-Disney credits is the 1964 live-action and animated feature "The Incredible Mr. Limpet," starring Don Knotts.
          Bill Tytla died December 31, 1968, in East Lyme, Connecticut.&