Robert C. Broughton, 91, a pioneering camera effects artist for Walt Disney productions who worked on nearly every Disney motion picture from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” in 1937 to “The Black Hole” in 1979, died Jan. 19 at a nursing facility in Rochester, Minn., according to his son Dan.
Broughton’s job was to create spectacular effects in a subtle way, according to a profile on the Disney legends Web site. By using color traveling matte composite cinematography, Broughton helped Dick Van Dyke dance with animated penguins in “Mary Poppins.” He also created the visual effect that made Hayley Mills appear as twins in “The Parent Trap,” his son said. And he worked on the Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds,” providing the visual effects of the fluttering, menacing birds when Hitchcock contracted out the special effects work to Disney.
Born in Berkeley, Calif., on Sept. 17, 1917, Broughton attended the University of California, Los Angeles, before starting in the Disney mail room in 1937. He eventually moved into the camera department and quickly graduated to the advanced multi-plane camera, which gave depth to animated scenes in such features as “Pinocchio.”
Hunt was Alabama’s first GOP governor since 1872
Guy Hunt, who in 1987 became Alabama’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction but six years later was the first chief executive removed from office for a criminal conviction, died Friday in Birmingham. He was 75.
Family spokesman Mark McDaniel said Hunt died at Trinity Medical Center. He was being treated the last couple of years for cancer.
The former Amway salesman, farmer and Primitive Baptist preacher was dismissed as a country bumpkin by some when he entered the governor’s race in 1986. But he pulled a spectacular upset when internal feuding split the Democratic Party, sending 56 percent of voters into Hunt’s column.
He became the first Republican elected to lead Alabama since 1872. He is credited with filling enough committees, boards and other offices with Republicans that he helped make Alabama a two-party state.
Hunt was re-elected in 1990, but halfway through his second term, he was convicted of violating the state ethics law for misusing inaugural funds and was kicked out of office.
From Herald news services
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