Robert Walker obit

Obituary: Ottawa animator Bob Walker was nominated for Academy Award

He was not on the list.



For as long as anyone can remember, Bob Walker doodled: cartoon figures, faces, animals, Mad Magazine characters.

As a teenager, Walker covered his bedroom walls with doodles. His parents would sometimes paint over them just to give their son a new canvas on which to work.

“He was always drawing, drawing, drawing,” said his older sister, Sandra Walker, an Ottawa teacher. “That was his passion.”

Walker, who grew up in Ottawa and graduated from Gloucester High School, translated that passion into a career as a Walt Disney studio layout artist and director — a career that culminated with a 2003 Academy Award nomination for the animated feature Brother Bear, a film that earned more than $250 million worldwide.

Walker, who recently retired from the film industry, died suddenly at his California home last week from a suspected heart attack. He was 54.

“He was just a down-to-earth, quiet, thoughtful guy who cared about the people around him,” said his younger brother, Jim. “He was unassuming: he went through life with untied shoes, jeans and a T-shirt.”

Bob Walker always knew he wanted some kind of career in the art world. After graduating from Gloucester, he pursued a liberal arts degree at New York’s St. Lawrence University. One year later, he transferred to Oakville’s Sheridan College upon discovering the school offered a degree in animation. (The much-acclaimed program was launched in the early 1970s with some of the equipment that had been used to produce Rocket Robin Hood, a made-in-Canada animated TV series.)

After Sheridan, Walker was hired at what was then one of the country’s premier animation studios: Atkinson Film-Arts in Ottawa. For five years, Walker worked on animated TV shows such as The Raccoons and Dennis The Menace; he left the firm — part of Crawley Films — just before it shut down in 1989.

Luckily, Walker had heard about a new Walt Disney animation studio being opened in Bay Lake, Florida. His father, an Ottawa car dealer, gave his son an old van that he drove to Florida to apply for the job. “He had a portfolio under his arm, went into the Disney trailer, and they hired him on the spot,” said Jim Walker.

The studio, built inside a Disney theme park, was originally designed so that visitors could watch through glass walls as animators did their work. That plan didn’t last long, since the animators didn’t take kindly to being viewed like zoo animals.

Walker started as a layout artist on Roller Coaster Rabbit, a Roger Rabbit short, and later became head of layout for the Florida studio, overseeing scenes for feature films such as The Rescuers Down Under (1990), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Mulan (1998) and Lilo & Stitch (2002).

Although Walker was involved in some of the biggest animated films of the era, he wasn’t one to boast. “He was so humble: you had to pull anything out of him,” said Sandra Walker. “He was a man of few words, but when he was listening to you, he made you feel like you were the only one there.”

In 2003, Walker launched his directing debut. His Disney bosses warned him that he would have to talk more often in his new role.

“They said, ‘Bob, you’re ready to take this leap but you’re going to have to speak, you’re going to have to tell people what to do,’ ” recalled his brother, Jim.

Brother Bear, co-directed by Walker, was nominated for an Academy Award in the best animated feature category.

The film that Walker and Aaron Blaise co-directed, Brother Bear, tells the story of an Inuit boy, Kenai, who takes on the form of a bear after killing the animal. The film, which featured the voices of Hollywood stars Joaquin Phoenix, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, was nominated for an Academy Award in the best animated feature category. It lost that year to Pixar’s Finding Nemo.

Walker recently retired to California to spend more time with his nine-year-old daughter and to work on his golf game, while also pursuing with more personal art projects.

“He just filled the room in a quiet, unassuming way,” said his sister. “He was so much fun to be around.”