ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 4, 1996 TAG: 9602050100
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
Shamus Culhane, a pioneering animator who made the Seven Dwarfs march home singing ``Heigh Ho'' in Walt Disney's ``Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,'' died Friday at his home. He was 87 and lived in Manhattan.
The cause was congestive heart failure, according to a cousin.
Culhane's career in animation, which began before movies could talk and was accelerated in the sound era by his talent for synchronizing facial movements with dialogue, spanned more than 60 years, beginning in 1925.
Culhane was the only animator who worked on all of the first four animated feature cartoons - Disney's ``Snow White'' (1937) and ``Pinocchio'' (1940); Max Fleischer's ``Gulliver's Travels'' (1939); and Dave Fleischer's ``Mr. Bug Goes to Town'' (1941).
Culhane also animated such characters as Krazy Kat, Betty Boop, Popeye, Pluto and Woody Woodpecker.
Culhane was born in Ware, Mass., on Nov. 12, 1908.
- The New York Times
LENGTH: Short : 30 linesby CNB