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Early Life and Education

Retta Scott was born in Omak, Washington on February 23, 1916.

She graduated from Seattle's Roosevelt High School in 1934. Scott received two scholarships over the course of her education. The first was from the Seattle Art & Music Foundation, who awarded her with a scholarship in the 4th grade that she used to attend 10 years of creative art classes. She later received 3-year scholarship to attend the Chouinard Art Institute, so she moved to Los Angeles, California. She spent much of her free time sketching wildlife at the nearby Griffith Park zoo. Her ambition was to mold a career in Fine arts.

As her time at the Chouinard Art Institute ended, its director, Vern Caldwell, urged Scott to apply for work with Walt Disney, based on her passion for animals. She was initially uninterested due to the cartoon shorts the company was known for, but Caldwell recommended her to work on Bambi, a full film which was in production. She eventually joined the company in 1938 to work in the Story Department.

Career at Disney

Retta Scott worked on storyboards to develop scenes of Bambi and his mother, and, more notably, the film’s hunting dogs, which she spent weeks on to develop them into “vicious, snarling, really mean beasts.” Male artists in the company were stunned, who initially assumed that only another man could create drawings with such intensity and technical skill. Her stunning sketches caught the eye of Disney himself, so when the film went into production she was assigned to animate scenes of hunting dogs chasing Faline. She worked under the film's supervising director, David D. Hand, and was tutored by Disney animator Eric Larson. This was a significant coup for the young woman, since at the 1930s-era Disney studio, women were considered only for routine tasks: "Ink and paint art was a laborious part of the animation process, and was solely the domain of women..." Her promotion to animator was in part thanks to the success of herself and other women such as Bianca Majolie, Sylvia Holland, and Mary Blair as storyboard artists. She became the first woman to receive screen credit as an animator.

After Bambi, Scott helped produce Fantasia and Dumbo, as well as a film later cancelled called Wind in the Willows. She also made an appearance in The Reluctant Dragon, and worked independently with colleague Woolie Reitherman on a cancelled children’s book called B-1st. Despite being laid off in 1941, Scott was quickly rehired in 1942, assisting in educational videos and other smaller-scale shorts. Her brief time laid off was partially due to a Disney animators' strike in the summer of 1941, despite Scott being one of only a few animators not involved in the strike. She retired on August 2nd, 1946 after marrying submarine commander Benjamin Worcester, becoming Retta Scott Worcester.

Later Work

Retta Scott Worcester and her husband moved to Washington, D.C, where she illustrated books such as The Santa Claus Book and Happy Birthday. She also continued working with Disney through freelance jobs such as illustrating the Big Golden Book edition of Disney's Cinderella. Her work caught the attention of past and current Disney employees, including Jonas Rivera, producer of Up, who commented, “I’ve always loved the Retta Scott Cinderella because it doesn’t look like the movie, but somehow it feels like the movie.” Scott divorced her husband in 1981, and remained an active illustration until she was again hired as an animator in 1982 for the Luckey-Zamora Moving Picture Company. She continued to impress artists, especially male artists who initially underestimated her work, and was eager to teach her skills.

Retta Scott suffered from a stroke in December of 1985 and passed away on August 26, 1990.