From his obit in the New York Times:
Eustace Lycett, whose work helping to create special effects for major Disney productions — including characters in “Mary Poppins” who walk on smoke, and seemingly empty suits of medieval armor engaged in combat in “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” — earned him a share in two Academy Awards, died on Nov. 16 at his home in Fullerton, Calif. He was 91.
A spokesman for Walt Disney Studios, Howard Green, said yesterday that company officials had not been notified of his death until this week.
During a 43-year career with Disney, starting in 1937, Mr. Lycett worked on more than 30 films, including “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Babes in Toyland,” “The Absent-Minded Professor,” “101 Dalmatians” and “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.”
In 1964, along with Peter Ellenshaw and Hamilton Luske, he won an Oscar for special visual effects for “Mary Poppins.” And in 1971, with Alan Maley and Danny Lee, he won another Oscar in the same category for “Bedknobs and Broomsticks.”
Mr. Lycett was a protégé of Ub Iwerks, a pioneer of animation and special effects who for many years was head of the Disney studio’s process laboratory. They and other technicians worked together in the late 1930s to design a complex version of what was called the multiplane camera, a device that revolutionized animation by bringing depth to what had been a rather flat image. Mr. Iwerks, who died in 1971, had designed a simpler multiplane camera.
His career there was not limited to the big screen. He helped design “Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln,” one of the most popular exhibits at the 1964-65 World’s Fair in New York, and “Rocket to the Moon,” a major attraction at Disneyland.
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