Nancy (Lane) Tomaselli of Warwick died on Friday, Nov. 20, 2020, at Valley View Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Goshen. She was 80 years old.
Born in Houlton, Maine, on Nov. 18, 1940, she was the daughter of Paul and Nancy (O’Donnell) Lane. She grew up in Houlton, after which she attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Parsons School of Design in New York City.
Nancy remained in New York City, pursuing a career in commercial art, starting in animation, hand-inking and painting animators’ drawings onto cels for television commercials at Stars and Stripes Studios.
She also worked at Perpetual Motion Pictures (e.g., Berenstain Bears, Strawberry Shortcake) from 1980 to 1982, then worked at Hoffer & Silvermintz in the mid-1980’s.
She later went on to work for the Academy Award–winning Hubley Studios, helping to create both short and full-length features for PBS.
She also worked on such classics as Schoolhouse Rock.
While at Cel-Art Studios she did the inking and painting for classic television commercials for Hawaiian Punch, Hostess Cakes, and Cheerios.
Much later, in the 1990s, she worked on MTV’s animated series, Beavis and Butthead, as well as the 1996 full-length feature Beavis and Butthead Do America.
Nancy was also a highly talented and prolific photorealist painter of animals in the wild.
She was married to Rudolph Tomaselli of Warwick, who predeceased her by several months, and is survived by her daughter, Susan Fensten; grandson, Anthony DeSeta; brothers: Michael, David and Christopher; and five step-children: Frances Melder, Gordon Tomaselli, Alice Warren, Rudolph Tomaselli and James Tomaselli; as well as several step-grandchildren. She was predeceased by her daughter, Ilia Fensten.
A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 10, at Lazear-Smith & Vander Plaat Memorial Home, 17 Oakland Ave., Warwick.
Interment will follow in Warwick Cemetery, 94 Oakland Ave., Warwick.
Arrangements were entrusted to Lazear-Smith & Vander Plaat Memorial Home. To send an online condolence, visit www.LSVPMemorialHome.com.