In the autumn of 1941, Floyd Norman accompanied his mother to Santa Barbara’s Arlington Theatre to see Walt Disney’s new animated feature “Dumbo.” The six-year-old sat spellbound, entranced by the story of the flying baby elephant.

 

Twenty-five years later, Norman was on a soundstage at Walt Disney Studios, where he was working as a story artist—a sort of screenwriter whose primary tools are images rather than words. He was working with actor Sterling Holloway, who was giving voice to the hypnotic but ineffectual snake Kaa in “The Jungle Book.”

 

“That was truly a kid’s dream coming true,” Norman said. Holloway had voiced the role of Mr. Stork in “Dumbo;” now they were collaborating on the studio’s latest masterpiece.

 

Sadly, “The Jungle Book” would turn out to be Walt Disney’s final project — he died of lung cancer later that year. But Norman, who joined the studio in 1956, was just hitting his stride. The studio’s first African-American animator, he worked on many now-classic films and was officially named a “Disney Legend” in 2007.

 

At age 83, he still goes to work every day, usually arriving at Disney’s Burbank campus by 7 a.m. Yes, he’s officially retired. But he loves the environment, and relishes the opportunity to mentor young animators and share stories about the studio’s golden age.

 

“I’m only doing what the old-timers did for me when I came here as a kid,” he said. “I’m passing on what I learned to the next generation.”