Keane was honest with his team every step of the way: “You guys work so hard just to come up with something that looks bad!”

Keane’s leadership and supervision gave way to technology that was already affecting other movies in the pipeline. His project, now known as Rapunzel, was actually ready to be made. But in 2008, after nearly six years of straight pre-production art direction and animation experiments, Keane had a heart attack and decided to step down from the project. The film was taken over by Nathan Greno and Byron Howard, the directors of Bolt, and eventually became Tangled (2011).

Tangled grew on Keane’s foundation, and the change in leadership benefited the film greatly. Having worked on the movie since 2003, and having been mulling over the story even longer, animators who worked under Keane have commented that his story was dated and heavily influenced by Shrek. Had that movie been made, who knows what kind of failure it might have seen.

But throughout its long development, Keane was uncompromising in the aesthetic of the project. In the end, Keane was credited as Animation Supervisor and Directing Animator. Tangled faced fierce competition for the Oscar spotlight  by Disney’s own Toy Story 3 - which undoubtedly utilized Keane’s whimsical style of animation – and DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon, helmed by the original director of American Dog, who left Disney when his movie was taken from him and transformed into Bolt. The Oscars passed and Tangled didn’t even get nominated for Best Animated Feature. It remains held in reverence largely behind the doors of the industry.

From 1989 to 1999, Glen Keane worked through an era known as The Disney Renaissance. After a long slump of unpopular and unsuccessful films, Disney began producing some of the best animation it ever made, beginning with The Little Mermaid and peaking with The Lion King. Keane was there during The Renaissance, drawing Ariel and Aladdin and The Beast and more, and solidified his reputation as one of the best animators to ever wield a pencil.

After the millennium, Disney needed another renaissance if it was going to survive as an animation studio. It needed to reinvent itself artistically and improve its reputation. In desperation the entire department turned to one man, asking him to literally invent their future at whatever cost. Glen Keane gave Disney its second renaissance. All by himself.

Glen Keane left Disney just last March, after 38 years with the company.