Thérèse "Tissa" David (January 5, 1921 – August 21, 2012) was a Romanian-born American animator of Hungarian ethnicity, whose career spanned more than sixty years.[1]
She was one of the pioneering women in animation, a field which had been dominated by male animators.[2][3] Millimeter magazine described her as "one of the few women to have reached the top in the traditionally male-dominated animated cartoon field" and "one of the world's best and busiest" animators in a story published in 1975.[3]
In 1953, she directed Bonjour Paris , becoming the second female animator to direct an animated feature film.[2] David later became one of the first women to create and animate a major character in a film when she designed Raggedy Ann for the 1977 film, Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure.[1]