Henn’s handiwork can be found in several of Disney’s title characters. He penned the images of Princess Jasmine in “Aladdin,” Young Simba in “The Lion King” and Mulan in “Mulan.”
“Mark’s done all the princess movies,” said Henn’s mother, Marge, from her Ohio home in Lebanon. “Princess Jasmine was modeled after his younger sister Beth.”
Henn, who currently resides in Los Angeles, was born in Dayton in 1958.
“He graduated from Trotwood-Madison High School in 1976 and attended Sinclair Community College, UD and Bowling Green,” Marge said. “He went to California Institute of Art. He was hired by the Walt Disney Company out of Cal Arts in 1980.”
Henn sees a parallel between the message of his latest work — following your dreams — to his own experience. “This (working as a Disney animator) was a boyhood dream for me. It’s what I wanted to do when I grew up. Like Tiana, dreams do come true I guess, with a little hard work along the way,” Henn said in a phone interview Thursday.
Henn, who jokes that he’s worked on “The Princess and the Frog” since, “Brett Favre was a (Green Bay) Packer” is glad to see Disney going back to hand-drawn animation.
“This is our heritage; this is our legacy... There’s room for hand-drawn animation in a world that’s very crowded with computer-animated films,” said Henn, who explained there is talk of several other upcoming Disney projects that would be hand-drawn.
Of his role in animating Disney’s first black princess, Henn says simply, “it’s a tremendous honor.”
In April, Henn was awarded the Red Stick International Animation Festival Lifetime Career Achievement Award.
“We created this award to honor those animators who truly love the medium and have in some way advanced the field for others,” Red Stick festival director Stacey Simmons told theadvocate.com. “We are excited to present this award to Mark Henn, who has created some of the most beloved Disney characters, particularly the Disney princesses.”
Marge said her son returns to Dayton as often as he can.
“He loves Dayton. He came back in 2003 to dedicate the sculptures he did of Orville and Wilbur Wright at Deeds Point,” she said. Henn was asked to do the Wright Brothers sculpture after a smaller version of it was seen by Doris and David Ponitz of Sinclair Community College.
Dayton Daily News Staff Writer Alexis Larsen contributed to this report.
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