Dan Lee

Dan Lee ( born May 19, 1969 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, † January 15, 2005 in Berkeley, California, United States) was a Canadian animator, whose best-known character Nemo from Finding Nemo ( Finding Nemo ) is.

Life and work

Lee was born as the youngest of four children of Chinese immigrants. He studied classical animation at Sheridan College in Toronto and was already during his studies for his excellent art (The Board of Governors Silver Medal Award for Academic Excellence ). He worked for several film studios in animation for television and advertising, for example, Kennedy Cartoons in Toronto and Colossal Pictures in San Francisco.

In 1994 he joined the staff at Pixar. Here he worked, first as sketches and animation artist, and later as a character artist in the great animation successes of the studios: Toy Story 2 (1999), A Bug's Life (1998, A Bug's Life), Monsters, Inc. (2001, Monsters, Inc.), and finally, Finding Nemo (2003, Finding Nemo ). Besides Nemo Lee created other famous characters like Rosie and Princess Atta from A Bug's Life, Boo and CEO Henry J. Waternoose from Monsters, Inc. and Marlin and Barracuda from Finding Nemo.

Although he had never smoked, died Dan Lee 2005 at the age of only 35 years from lung cancer. Friends and colleagues reported in 2005 posthumously the book In your Face out, the sketches assembled, the Lee privately anfertigte of cafe visitors. 2007, the movie Ratatouille was dedicated to him.