‘The Lion King’ co-director Roger Allers dead at 76
Roger Allers, the co-director of the Disney classic The Lion King, has died aged 76.
Allers passed away on January 17th, with his longtime collaborator and producer Dave Bossert announcing the news via a Facebook post on the next day. He said: “I am deeply saddened by the news that our friend Roger Allers has passed on to his next journey.”
Going on to list a number of the filmmaker’s most prolific credits, including working on The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, Bossert added that Allers’s passing was extremely profound as: “We were just trading emails this past week while he was travelling in Egypt, which makes this loss feel all the more unreal.”
No cause of death for Allers has been revealed at this time, but being described as “a true pillar of the Disney Animation renaissance,” his prolific stint of work within the company during the 1980s and ‘90s remained his greatest filmmaking legacy.
In particular, his co-direction of The Lion King, alongside Rob Minkoff, led the film to unparalleled heights as the most successful animated film to ever be made.
He also found subsequent triumph in writing the Broadway adaptation of the film, which has run in New York for the past 27 years.
Concluding his tribute, Bossert said of Allers: “He carried a sense of wonder, generosity, and enthusiasm that lifted everyone around him. Roger had a joyful, luminous spirit, and the world is dimmer without him. Rest in peace, my friend. Until we meet again on the other side.”
Further tributes were paid to Allers from across the industry, including his Lion King co-director Minkoff, who said (via Daily Mail): “It came as a terrible shock.”
He added: “Roger was a one-of-a-kind, eccentric creative spirit who touched many lives deeply, including my own. His work will continue to delight and inspire generations to come.”
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