Herbert Ryman
In 1932 Ryman moved to California, where he found a job as a storyboard illustrator in the art department of Cedric Gibbons at Metro-Golden-Mayer Studios.
He helped design many major pictures for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and 20th Century Fox including the screen styling of David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, Mutiny on the Bounty, and Anna Karenina.
His work on The Good Earth project inspired him to leave his job at MGM and tour China where he made many sketches.
They traveled by aircraft and regional railway systems connecting the countries of Brazil, Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, and Mexico.
At Fox, Ryman also worked on several other pictures, including Forever Amber, Down to the Sea in Ships, David and Bathsheba, The Black Rose, and The Robe.
Set in nineteenth-century England, the story centers around the fictional "Waterloo" tontine, established to benefit veterans of the Napoleonic wars.
Disney and Ryman worked non-stop throughout the weekend creating a large pencil sketch and several other drawings illustrating the project.
[9] Roy Disney took the drawings and a six-page portfolio to New York to show investors the plan in order to secure financing used to develop Disneyland.
Herb also contributed concepts for the Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, and for attractions featured at the 1964-65 New York World's Fair, including Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.
He is well known for his watercolors of the rugged California coasts around Carmel and Point Lobos, as well as for his paintings of the Ringling Brothers Circus, and portraits of Emmett Kelly and other well known people.
Though weakened by loss of blood, he showed utter disregard for his personal danger, refusing to accept treatment until the other wounded had been cared for.
[13] His mother, Cora Belle Norris, was born July 6, 1876, in Pendleton County, Kentucky and was the great-granddaughter of President Zachary Taylor.
[14] After the death of her husband, Mrs. Ryman moved Herbert and his two sisters Lucille and Christine to Decatur, where she resumed her teaching career.
He later moved to Sherman Oaks, California, where he died of cancer on February 10, 1989.,[15] 16 days after the death of his oldest sister Christine Pensinger (1903-1989).
