Biography
William Cottrell, also credited as Bill Cottrell and known as Uncle Bill, was an American writer, sequence director and Imagineer who worked at the Walt Disney Studios from 1929 until his retirement in 1982.
He began in the camera department before moving to the story department, where he contributed to shorts and features. Cottrell served as a sequence director on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), handling sequences involving the Evil Queen and Witch. He received story or adaptation credits on Pinocchio (1940), Saludos Amigos (1942), The Three Caballeros (1944), Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953).
Cottrell later headed the division responsible for designing and building Disneyland, becoming the first president of what is now Walt Disney Imagineering. He was married to Hazel Sewell, sister of Lillian Disney.
