[1] Pyle enrolled as an art student at the University of Colorado Boulder, while working as a commercial illustrator for Gano-Downs department store in Denver, when he found an employment poster for animators at Walt Disney Studios.
[1] Pyle left from Colorado in 1937[4] and relocated to Los Angeles and was initially hired by Disney as an office boy in 1937.
[1] His first feature film was Pinocchio in 1940, in which he worked as an assistant animator under Milt Kahl, one of Disney's Nine Old Men.
[1] Willis Pyle next worked as an illustrator for Vogue magazine following his time with the U.S. Army Air Force.
[1] Willis Pyle died at his penthouse apartment on Broadway in Manhattan, New York City, on June 2, 2016, at the age of 101.