‘Toy Story’, ‘Finding Nemo’ story artist Rob Gibbs dies

He was only 55

Rob Gibbs, who spent more than 20 years working at the Pixar studios, died at 55 on April 28, 2020, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The story artist, writer and director contributed to many Pixar productions, from Toy Story 2, Monsters, Finding Nemo, Up, Wall-E, Inside Out to Onward. His death was confirmed by a company spokesperson.

However, the cause of death was not immediately available.

Gibbs' credits also included the short film Tokyo Mater (2008) and the series Mater's Tall Tales and Tales From Radiator Springs, all emanating from the Cars franchise; Brave (2012); Monsters University (2013) and the upcoming Monsters at Work series for Disney+ and Incredibles 2 (2018).

Gibbs was co-directing Hump at the time of his death, along with working on its pre-production. The film featured voices of Simon Pegg, Gaten Matarazzo, Ramy Youssef and others.

A resident of San Rafael, California, Gibbs was Born in Escondido, California and inspired by Looney Tunes and Popeye cartoons as a kid. He said he began to appreciate short films after attending a Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation in La Jolla, California.

The late artist attended Palomar College, CalArts and did animation for FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992) and Cool World (1992). This was before he spent five years in story and visual development at Walt Disney Feature Animation, working on Pocahontas (1995), The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue (1998) and Fantasia 2000 (1999).

Gibbs joined Pixar in February 1998 and served as a storyboard artist on Toy Story 2 (1999).

He is survived by his daughter Mary, the voice of Boo in several Monsters, Inc. projects.

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