Godspeed Animator Jane Baer

Animator Jame Baer, who worked on the Disney classic Sleeping Beauty (1959) and the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), died on February 16, 2026, at the age of 91.

Jane Baer was born Jane Shattuck on October 30, 1934, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She attended the Art Center in Pasadena. In 1955, she went to work at Disney on Sleeping Beauty (1959), on which she would be a cleanup artist. In the early Sixties, she worked at Ed Graham Animation. She moved to Europe for a time. Once back in the Untied States, she worked at Filmation Associates on such shows as Aquaman and Journey to the Centre of the Earth in the mid to late Sixties. She then wen to work at Pantomime Studios on such shows as Speed Racer, Hot Wheels, and Skyhawks in the mid to late Sixties. She also worked on the animated feature film Santa and the Three Bears (1970).

In the Seventies, among her feature film credits were Journey Back to Oz (1982), The Rescuers (1977), and Pet4e's Dragon (1977). She worked on animation for the comedy The Naked Ape (1973). In the early Eighties, she worked on the Saturday morning cartoons Laverne & Shirley in the Army and The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang. She was a character designer on Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp  (1982). It was in 1984 that she and her husband Dale Bear founded  Baer Animation, which would later include Baer Animation Camera Services. As part of Baer Animation, Jane Baer worked on Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988), including the sequences in Toontown and the character of Benny the Cab. She served as an assistant animator on The Black Cauldron (1986) and The Great Mouse Detective (1986). She provided animation for the film Fletch Lives (1989) and worked on the shorts "Tummy Trouble" (1989) and "The Prince and the Pauper." On television, she also worked on the TV series Smurfs. 

In the Nineties, she worked on the films Rover Dangerfield (1991) and Beauty and the Beast (1991). She provided animation for The Last Action Hero (1993) and The Beautician and the Beast (1997). She was a founding member of Women in Animation and also served on its advisory board. She also produced and co-wrote Annabelle's Wish (1997).

Jane Baer was  true pioneer in animation. At a time when there weren't that many female animators, she ran Baer Animation, at which she oversaw supervised anywhere from 50 to 100-plus artists and people, depending on the project they were working on at the time. She also worked on such truly legendary movies, from Sleeping Beauty to Beauty and the Beast. She leaves behind a legacy that only a few other animators can match.