Disney's Low-Key Superhero

Early in the film, which opened Friday, a cocky race car named Lightning McQueen declares, "I'm a one-man show." But by the time the credits roll, McQueen realizes he's nothing without a great pit crew behind him.

It's a lesson that Ed Catmull, Pixar's co-founder and the new president of Disney Feature Animation, has built his career on.

When Disney acquired Pixar in January, Chief Executive Bob Iger put Catmull and his better-known creative partner, John Lasseter, in charge of reinvigorating the Burbank entertainment giant's once-legendary animation operation. Lasseter, the charismatic idea man who directed "Cars," will be essential in this effort.

But Lasseter says Catmull is the key to Pixar's (and now Disney's) success. The 61-year-old computer scientist, who is also president of Pixar, is nothing short of a spiritual leader, his colleagues say -- a soft-spoken man whose personal philosophies infuse the Pixar culture that has produced nothing but blockbusters.

"Ed is the reason we're all here," said Lasseter, noting Catmull's anti-bureaucratic, artist-driven, bottom-up management style. "He's the ultimate parent -- he helps you be the best you can be."

It now falls to Catmull to put the "team" back into Team Disney. How does he plan to do it? By completely changing the rules.

"Sometimes, it's the leadership that's blocking something," Catmull said in a recent interview in his new office at Disney, a place where animators have griped for decades about being micromanaged.

"I've always believed that you shape the management team around the talent rather than try to force people into a certain way of doing it."

Mention Pixar to most moviegoers, and they'll tick off the maverick studio's parade of hits -- the "Toy Story" films, "A Bug's Life," "Monsters, Inc.," "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles." If anyone can remember an executive's name, it's likely to be that of CEO Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Computer Inc. who launched Pixar 20 years ago and has always served as its public face.

But while Catmull will never be a household name, he's a celebrity in the rarefied world of computer graphics. A brainiac who holds some patents and has won four Academy Awards for his technical feats, he has helped create some of the key computer-generated imagery software that animators rely on.