Oscar-winning animator Glen Keane expressed his gratitude to local first responders by gifting custom artwork to the Phoenix and Tempe fire departments following his rescue from Mummy Mountain on Aug. 7, when he thanked crews for their bravery.
Glen Keane, 72, grew up in Paradise Valley and now lives in Paris, and he wanted to say thanks to the Phoenix and Tempe crews who saved him by bringing them artwork he drew, which reads, “Our family helping your family.”
It shows Keane being hoisted up to the helicopter, the firefighters on top of the mountain, and his family members who were led down.
“Normally, you know, I’m drawing the Little Mermaid, Aladdin, the Beast, Tarzan, Pocahontas, all these characters and they are heroes. They’re heroines,” Keane said.
“I was thinking, ‘Oh, maybe I should draw Aladdin flying here or something.'”
“I said, ‘No, no, no, this is not about me.’ You guys are the heroes. There’s no fairytales to this. You are risking your lives and this is not animation. This is real life.”
“Everything about this experience has been humbling,” Keane said. “I think it’s probably the most difficult thing for somebody to say, ‘I can’t.'”
“Phoenix Fire Capt. Patrick O’Neill is grateful to Keane for acknowledging his rescuers and for the artwork. He noted that everybody from Arizona knows who Keane’s dad is, referring to the creator of The Family Circus comic strip, which O’Neill read all the time as a kid.”
“He did the Family Circus. I read those all the time as a kid. I think we all did as a kid,” O’Neill said.
“You were all over the place!” Keane told rescuers as he greeted them at Phoenix’s Station 12 on Friday.
“Make sure you know that you are in safe territory and don’t count on it being the same way you saw it when you were a little kid.”
In the viral moment that preceded Keane’s gratitude visit,
the Oscar-winning animator was rescued from Mummy Mountain in Paradise Valley, Arizona, on Wednesday (July 29) after becoming stranded during a hike, when he realized the narrow trail had become too difficult to navigate in the 109°F heat.
He was with his daughter and grandchildren on Mummy Mountain when he became tired, weak and unsteady, and his grandchildren handled the trail easily, but he reached a narrow ridge and realized, “I really needed help.”
The Phoenix Fire Department dispatched a rescue helicopter, which airlifted him from the mountaintop to a nearby landing zone.
According to Animation Magazine, Keane did not require further medical treatment.
“I would climb this thing all the time, and I thought, ‘Oh, no big deal. It’s going to be easy. But no, it wasn’t,” Keane, 72, told a 12 News reporter after coming down off the mountain summit to a safe landing zone.
During his celebrated 38-year career at The Walt Disney Studios, Keane created such classic characters for the studio as Ariel in The Little Mermaid, the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas and Tarzan.
He won an Oscar in 2018 for the best animated short Dear Basketball, an award he shared with Kobe Bryant.
Keane, who grew up in the area but now resides in France
, had come back to share memories with his family.
“Keane grew up in the area, and says he wanted to show his daughter and grandkids where he spent time as a little kid.”
“As I was being lifted up, I was looking at all the areas that I used to climb around as a kid, and I thought, ‘Lord, thank you.’ This was a real blessing to have that crew, and they were really risking their lives on the edge of that narrow little ridge,” Keane added in tribute to his rescuers.
On Aug. 7, he thanked crews for their bravery for risking their own safety by bringing a gift to Phoenix Fire Station 12 at 32nd Street and Glenrosa.