Leo D. Sullivan, Pioneering Black Animator, Dies at 82
By Mike Barnes (Hollywood Reporter)
Leo D. Sullivan, the groundbreaking Black animator who contributed to the enduring opening for Soul Prepare and to cartoons that includes Fats Albert, Transformers and My Little Pony throughout his 50-year-plus profession, has died. He was 82.
Sullivan died Saturday of coronary heart failure at Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Medical Middle, his spouse, Ethelyn, informed The Hollywood Reporter.
The Emmy-winning Sullivan additionally was a author, producer, director, structure artist and storyboard artist at studios together with Hanna-Barbera, Warner Bros., Filmation, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, DIC Leisure and Marvel Productions.
He and onetime Disney animator Floyd Norman have been among the many co-founders of Vignette Movies within the Sixties. Their firm produced instructional movies about such Black heroes as George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington and was behind a 1969 Invoice Cosby particular, Hey! Hey! Hey! It’s Fats Albert, for NBC.
The duo additionally teamed on AfroKids.com, whose mission it’s to construct vanity and reconnect youngsters to their cultural heritage by instructing life classes, household values, respect and accountability. (Sullivan was featured prominently within the 2016 documentary Floyd Norman: An Animated Life.)
A local of Lockhart, Texas, Leo Dan Sullivan settled in Los Angeles in 1952. His father was within the navy, and his household moved round loads. He started his profession working errands for Bob Clampett within the ’50s earlier than turning into an animation cel polisher on the producer’s Beany and Cecil cartoons.
Sullivan helped animate the unique locomotive and graphics that have been used to open every episode of the Don Cornelius-hosted music present Soul Prepare, which premiered in syndication in 1971.
Sullivan additionally labored on I Am the Biggest!: The Adventures of Muhammad Ali, The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle, BraveStarr, The Flintstones, Flash Gordon, Pac-Man, Scooby-Doo, SuperFriends, The Unbelievable Hulk and Tiny Toons.
Twice honored by the Black Filmmakers Corridor of Fame, Sullivan produced commercials for Jamaican advert businesses; managed supervisors for animation studios in Asia; printed a online game that honored the heroic Tuskegee Airmen; developed and animated a personality named Walt for the California Science Middle exhibit BodyWorks; and taught courses in 2D and digital animation on the Artwork Institute of California-Orange County in Santa Ana.
He just lately launched a multimedia basis to coach underserved youth in new media know-how, with an emphasis on animation and video games.
Along with his spouse, survivors embody son Leo Jr. and daughter Tina.
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