Donald Virgil "Don" Bluth (born September 13, 1937) is an American animator, writer, producer, and director. He is a co-creator and current legal owner of the Dragon's Lair franchise. In 1983, his studio produced the innovative, cinematic video game Dragon's Lair. Two similar games followed, Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp and Space Ace.
Bluth began working for Disney in the 1950s and left in the 1980s to start his own animation studio to create his own animated films, which included the critical and commercial hits An American Tail, All Dogs Go To Heaven, and The Land Before Time. To date, Titan A.E. is the last Don Bluth-directed film. In 2017, Bluth, Gary Goldman, and Lavalle Lee crowdfunded a presentation pitch for a traditionally animated film adaptation of Dragon's Lair, but it failed to find studio support. The Dragon's Lair franchise is reportedly being developed as a live-action film for Netflix, but the current status of the project is unknown.[1] Bluth continues to offer training and advising to aspiring animators through Don Bluth University.[2]
Biography[]
Born into a family of seven children in El Paso, Texas, he grew up in Payson, Utah. After seeing Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bluth knew he wanted to be an animator and after high school in 1954 he attended Bringham Young University and one year later got a job at Walt Disney Animation Studios assisting John Lounsbury on Sleeping Beauty, but left the studio in 1957 to help his brother Fred with directing stage plays. He later returned to Disney in 1971 and worked as an animator on Robin Hood, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, The Rescuers and The Fox and the Hound, among others. After leaving Disney, he formed Don Bluth Productions with several former Disney animators (including Goldman and John Pomeroy) and began his directing career with The Secret of NIMH, to be followed by the above-mentioned video games and several films. His official website DonBluth.com serves as the homepage for Don Bluth University.
Professionally, Bluth has operated under several company banners including Don Bluth Productions, the Bluth Group Ltd, Sullivan Bluth Studios, and Don Bluth Entertainment. For licensing the Dragon's Lair and Space Ace franchises, Bluth has utilized several other copyright imprints in connection with Rick Dyer including Starcom/Magicom Inc., Don Bluth Multimedia Inc., Dragons Lair LLC, and Dragonstone Software.
Selected filmography[]
- Sleeping Beauty (1959, assistant director, animator)
- The Sword in the Stone (1963, assistant director, animator)
- Robin Hood (1973, character animator)
- Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974, short film)
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977, animation director, character animator)
- The Rescuers (1977, animation director)
- Pete's Dragon (1977, animation director)
- The Small One (1978, short film)
- Banjo the Woodpile Cat (1979, short film)
- Xanadu (1980, animated sequence)
- The Fox and the Hound (1981, animator)
- The Secret of NIMH (1982)
- Dragon's Lair (1983, video game)
- Dragon's Lair (1983, TV series)
- Space Ace (1984, video game)
- An American Tail (1986)
- The Land Before Time (1988)
- All Dogs Go to Heaven (1980)
- Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp (1991, video game)
- Rock-a-Doodle (1992)
- Thumbelina (1994)
- A Troll in Central Park (1994)
- The Pebble and the Penguin (1995)
- Anastasia (1997)
- Bartok the Magnificent (1999)
- Titan A.E. (2000)
- Tapper World Tour (2010, video game)
Trivia[]
- Cardsmiths' Dragon's Lair trading card series includes a sub-series of Autograph cards with Bluth being featured as card A-DB (“DON BLUTH”).[3]