Photographer and film editor Jay Lawton dies at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday, April 23, after a brief battle with cancer.
Photographer and film editor Jay Lawton died at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday, April 23, after a brief battle with cancer. He was 51. As an assistant editor he worked at several Los Angeles animation studios, including DreamWorks Animation and Walt Disney Television Animation. Projects included "Recess," Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure, The Jungle Book 2, Clifford's Really Big Movie, "Loonatics Unleashed," "Johnny Test," and "The Replacements."
For over a decade Lawton ran his own fine art studio, JayPG Photography, and his recently completed "Project 50," a set of fifty portraits of gay men over the age of fifty (a demographic Lawton felt was unjustly marginalized within an already marginalized minority), is scheduled to be exhibited at this summer's LA PRIDE / Christopher Street West Festival. Lawton's photo archives documenting over two decades of Gay and Lesbian history in Los Angeles have been acquired by the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives housed at USC. Lawton is survived by his partner, Peter Ayala, and a sister, Janet Brunty, of Waycross, Georgia.
Donations in his name may be made to the ONE Archives, www.onearchives.org.
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
