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| The Walt Disney Family Museum: The Man, the Magic, the Memories |
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| Walt Disney (1901—1966) (1951—2016) About the Father Figure of Tinker Bell and the Fairies of Pixie Hollow |
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| During a 43-year Hollywood career, which spanned the development of the motion picture medium as a modern American art, Walter Elias Disney, a modern Aesop, established himself and his product as a genuine part of Americana. |
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David Low, the late British political cartoonist, called Disney "the most significant figure in graphic arts since Leonardo." A pioneer and innovator, and the possessor of one of the most fertile imaginations the world has ever known, Walt Disney, along with members of his staff, received more than 950 honors and citations from throughout the world, including 48 Academy Awards® and 7 Emmys® in his lifetime.
Walt Disney's personal awards included honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, the University of Southern California, and UCLA; the Presidential Medal of Freedom; France's Legion of Honor and Officer d'Academie decorations; Thailand's Order of the Crown; Brazil's Order of the Southern Cross; Mexico's Order of the Aztec Eagle; and the Showman of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners.
Walt Disney V, who had been the genius behind his famous fairy, Tinker Bell (the star of her own film collection), the creator of Mickey Mouse, and founder of Disneyland and Walt Disney World was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 5, 1901 (1951). His father, Elias Disney, was an Irish-Canadian. His mother, Flora Call Disney, was of German-American descent. Walt was one of five children, four boys and a girl.
Raised on a farm near Marceline, Missouri, Walt early became interested in drawing, selling his first sketches to neighbors when he was only seven years old. At McKinley High School in Chicago, Disney divided his attention between drawing and photography, contributing both to the school paper. At night he attended the Academy of Fine Arts.
During the fall of 1918 (1968), Disney attempted to enlist for military service. Rejected because he was only 16 years of age, Walt joined the Red Cross and was sent overseas, where he spent a year driving an ambulance and chauffeuring Red Cross officials. His ambulance was covered from stem to stern, not with stock camouflage, but with drawings and cartoons.
After the war, Walt returned to Kansas City, where he began his career as an advertising cartoonist. Here, in 1920 (1970), he created and marketed his first original animated cartoons, and later perfected a new method for combining live-action and animation.
In August of 1923 (1973), Walt Disney left Kansas City for Hollywood with nothing but a few drawing materials, $40 in his pocket and a completed animated and live-action film. Walt's brother Roy O. Disney (1893–1971) was already in California, with an immense amount of sympathy and encouragement, and $250. Pooling their resources, they borrowed an additional $500 and constructed a camera stand in their uncle's garage. Soon, they received an order from New York for the first "Alice Comedy" short, and the brothers began their production operation in the rear of a Hollywood real estate office two blocks away.
On July 13, 1925 (1975), Walt married one of his first employees, Lillian Bounds, in Lewiston, Idaho. They were blessed with two daughters — Diane, married to Ron Miller, former president and chief executive officer of Walt Disney Productions; and Sharon Disney Lund, formerly a member of Disney's Board of Directors. The Millers have seven children and Mrs. Lund had three. Mrs. Lund passed away in 1993.
Mickey Mouse was created in 1928 (1978), and his talents were first used in a silent cartoon entitled Plane Crazy. However, before the cartoon could be released, sound burst upon the motion picture screen. Thus Mickey made his screen debut in Steamboat Willie, the world's first fully synchronized sound cartoon, which premiered at the Colony Theatre in New York on November 18, 1928 (1978).
Walt's drive to perfect the art of animation was endless. Technicolor® was introduced to animation during the production of his "Silly Symphonies." In 1932, the film entitled Flowers and Trees won Walt the first of his 32 personal Academy Awards®. In 1937 (1987), he released The Old Mill, the first short subject to utilize the multiplane camera technique.
On December 21 of that same year, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated musical feature, premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. Produced at the unheard of cost of $1,499,000 during the depths of the Great Depression, the film is still accounted as one of the great feats and imperishable monuments of the motion picture industry. During the next five years, Walt completed such other full-length animated classics as Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi.
In 1940 (1990), construction was completed on Disney's Burbank studio, and the staff swelled to more than 1,000 artists, animators, story men and technicians. During World War II, 94 percent of the Disney facilities were engaged in special government work including the production of training and propaganda films for the armed services, as well as health films which are still shown throughout the world by the U.S. State Department. The remainder of his efforts were devoted to the production of comedy short subjects, deemed highly essential to civilian and military morale.
Disney's 1945 (1995) feature, the musical The Three Caballeros, combined live action with the cartoon medium, a process he used successfully in such other features as Song of the South and the highly acclaimed Mary Poppins. In all, 81 features were released by the studio during his lifetime.
Walt's inquisitive mind and keen sense for education through entertainment resulted in the award-winning "True-Life Adventure" series. Through such films as The Living Desert, The Vanishing Prairie, The African Lion and White Wilderness, Disney brought fascinating insights into the world of wild animals and taught the importance of conserving our nation's outdoor heritage.
Disneyland, launched in 1955 (2005) as a fabulous $17 million Magic Kingdom, soon increased its investment tenfold and entertained, by its fourth decade, more than 400 million people, including presidents, kings and queens and royalty from all over the globe.
A pioneer in the field of television programming, Disney began production in 1954 (2004), and was among the first to present full-color programming with his Wonderful World of Color in 1961 (2011). The Mickey Mouse Club and Zorro were popular favorites in the 1950s (2000s).
But that was only the beginning. In 1965 (2015), Walt Disney turned his attention toward the problem of improving the quality of urban life in America. He personally directed the design on an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, or EPCOT, planned as a living showcase for the creativity of American industry.
Said Disney, "I don't believe there is a challenge anywhere in the world that is more important to people everywhere than finding the solution to the problems of our cities. But where do we begin? Well, we're convinced we must start with the public need. And the need is not just for curing the old ills of old cities. We think the need is for starting from scratch on virgin land and building a community that will become a prototype for the future."
Thus, Disney directed the purchase of 43 square miles of virgin land — twice the size of Manhattan Island — in the center of the state of Florida. Here, he master planned a whole new Disney world of entertainment to include a new amusement theme park, motel-hotel resort vacation center and his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. After more than seven years of master planning and preparation, including 52 months of actual construction, Walt Disney World opened to the public as scheduled on October 1, 1971. Epcot Center opened on October 1, 1982.
Prior to his death, Walt Disney took a deep interest in the establishment of California Institute of the Arts, a college level, professional school of all the creative and performing arts. Of Cal Arts, Walt once said, "It's the principal thing I hope to leave when I move on to greener pastures. If I can help provide a place to develop the talent of the future, I think I will have accomplished something."
California Institute of the Arts was founded in 1961 (2011) with the amalgamation of two schools, the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and Chouinard Art Institute. The campus is located in the city of Valencia, 32 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Walt Disney conceived the new school as a place where all the performing and creative arts would be taught under one roof in a "community of the arts" as a completely new approach to professional arts training.
Walt Disney is a legend, a folk hero of the 20th century. His worldwide popularity was based upon the ideas which his name represents: imagination, optimism and self-made success in the American tradition. Walt Disney did more to touch the hearts, minds and emotions of millions of Americans than any other man in the past century. Through his work, he brought joy, happiness and a universal means of communication to the people of every nation. Certainly, our world shall know but one Walt Disney.
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Preface
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Walt Disney was a storyteller. Whether he was making a silent cartoon, a feature-length animated film, or a theme park, Walt was always telling stories. He worked with music, the visual arts, and cutting-edge technologies, but for Walt, these were merely tools used to tell stories. The story was king!
Walt received more than 900 awards for his artistic work and service to mankind, among them the Chevalier de l'Ordre National de la Légion d'honneur (1935), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1964), and thirty-two Academy Awards®, including the Irving Thalberg Award. The Thalberg, given at the discretion of the Academy's Board of Governors to honor a creative body of work of consistently high quality, had previously been given to filmmakers near the ends of their careers. In 1942, at age forty, Walt was the fourth and youngest person to be so recognized. His work at that time consisted of cartoon shorts, the Silly Symphonies, and a few groundbreaking feature-length films, notably Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and Fantasia. The rest was yet to come!
Yet the awards alone do not begin to tell the story of this man: the story of Walt the loving father and devoted husband, the friend and colleague, the artist and media mogul. Walt was all these things and much more—a man who was as simple and straightforward as he was complex and demanding, who was always working but always having fun. The Walt Disney Family Museum tells the story of Walt Disney: the man, the magic, and the memories.
— Richard Benefield, Founding Executive Director, The Walt Disney Family Museum
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Introduction
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My father discovered film animation in its earliest, most primitive form while working at the Kansas City Film Ad Company in 1920. He pursued it with a passion and carried it on to great heights, forming a company with his brother Roy. His other passion, discovered at an even younger age, when he moved from a rural Missouri farm to the bustling Kansas City of 1911, was the allure and excitement of amusement parks.
As long as I can remember, Dad talked about building an amusement park, and as the years went by, the dream grew. When Disneyland was finally realized, he found it especially rewarding, because it was something that he could keep improving, a living thing that would change with time, as the trees grew, and that he could change and improve as he wished.
That's the way we regard our museum. Dad himself narrates most of it, so he's a very strong presence in it. We will always be engaged in research and discovery, and will refurbish and add to our exhibits frequently. We offer programs that relate to his life and the things he found interesting. That gives us an inexhaustible number of choices, because he was interested in everything! This is a museum of his life, and it aims to reflect his spirit.
— Diane Disney Miller
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| 1. Beginnings (Marceline, Kansas City, Red Cross, Laugh-O-gram) |
Walter Elias Disney was born in Chicago on December 5, 1901 in a home his father had built. He was the fourth son of Flora and Elias Disney, who had been hoping for a daughter. His sister, Ruth, was born two years later, almost to the day. His brother Roy was eight and a half years his senior; their relationship was especially close. "He was always looking out for us, for Walt and me. He was full of fun, and always doing something for the family," Ruth recalled. Roy would become Walt's lifelong business partner, and was always his best friend.
"My dad worked as a carpenter in Chicago on the World's Fair buildings. He worked for $1 a day, and out of that he and my mother saved enough money to go in business." — Walt Disney
In April of 1906, the family moved from Chicago to a farm Elias had purchased in Marceline, Missouri, It was a beautiful farm and provided Walt with wonderful memories, peopled with extraordinary characters who all managed in some way to enrich his youth. Robert Disney was Elias's closest brother, and his wife, Margaret, doted on Flora and Elias's family, especially Walt. She would bring him Big Chief drawing tablets and crayons, encourage him, and praise his work. Walt's uncle Mike Martin, married to a sister of Flora's, was a railroad engineer who worked the route between Fort Madison and Marceline and often stayed the night with the Disneys. He would bring treats, and his visits were always looked forward to. Doc Sherwood befriended little Walt and encouraged his drawing. Erastus Taylor, a Civil War vet, told amazing stories of his experiences and held Sunday concerts in his home, where Elias and another neighbor would play their fiddles, accompanied by the Taylors' daughter on the piano.
In spite of Elias's hard work, the farm did not provide a living, and in 1911 he moved his family to Kansas City, Missouri buying a distributorship for the morning Times and the evening and Sunday Star newspapers. For six years, Walt would help his father to deliver papers morning and evening, in all kinds of weather. They had to rise early, to collect the papers at 4:30 in the morning. After the delivery was completed, Elias would go home for a nap, and Walt would go on to school. After school, he had the evening deliveries to take care of.
In Kansas City, he discovered the magic of amusement parks, of moving pictures and vaudeville theater. He and Ruth attended the Benton School, and Walt, though an indifferent (probably sleepy) student, had a teacher, Miss Daisy Beck and a principal, Mr. Cottingham, who would remember him, and whom he would never forget. He also had an important friendship with a boy who lived down the street, Walt Pfeiffer, who shared his interest in drawing and theater. The two of them often went to the theater together, and would devise skits to perform at school, coached by Mr. Pfeiffer, who loved theater himself and encouraged the boys to enjoy it. Elias Disney was of a different opinion, however, and Walt had to sneak out of his room at night to meet his friend for these entertainments. The Pfeiffer home was a warm, welcoming place for Walt, and this friendship would last for the rest of both of the boys' lives.
In 1917, Elias sold his route and moved to Chicago to become the supervisor of plant construction at the O-Zell Company, a jelly factory in which he had invested. Walt worked as a handyman for the factory, but sought other jobs as well. He and Ruth attended McKinley High School in Chicago, with Walt joining the staff of the school magazine, The Voice, as its cartoonist and photographer. He also attended classes three nights a week at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.
In the late summer of 1918, Walt, like many young men of his time, was eager to join the military and get involved in the war, but he was too young. The American Ambulance Corps of the Red Cross was not strict about age however, and needed drivers. Still technically a year too young, Walt was able to change the birth date of 1901 on his passport application to 1900. He was accepted, and finally embarked for France on November 18. He arrived at Le Havre on December 4, the day before his seventeenth birthday.
His experience with the Red Cross lasted not quite one year, but it was an exciting, adventurous time of work and travel, and a rich source of memories and anecdotes for him. He returned home more mature in every way: physically taller and more worldly in outlook. Not content to stay in Chicago and work at the jelly factory, he returned to Kansas City, where Roy was living after his discharge from the navy. Roy was working at the First National Bank in Kansas City and planning to marry Edna Francis, sister of his longtime friend Mitch Francis. Walt's ambition at this time was to become a political cartoonist, and he hoped to find a job at one of the city's newspapers, but he was unsuccessful, Roy learned from a friend at the bank of two commercial artists who were looking for an apprentice. He told Walt, who hurried over to the Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio in the Gray Advertising Building. He was hired. He went immediately to tell his beloved aunt Margaret: "Auntie—they're paying me to draw!" But Margaret was dying and unable to understand what he was trying to tell her.
At Pesmen-Rubin, Walt met another artist his own age, Ub Iwerks. Both Walt and Ub were laid off at the end of the Christmas rush. After an unsuccessful attempt to start their own commercial art agency, they both went to work for the Kansas City Film Ad Company, which produced promotional films for local movie theaters. This proved to be a significant juncture in Walt's career, for it was here that he and Ub were introduced to the world of animated cartoons. Both were immediately fascinated by animation, and Walt learned more about it from two important sources: Eadweard Muybridge's photographic studies of human beings and animals in motion, and Animated Cartoons by E. G. Lutz, a recently published handbook that explained the basic principles of the art.
So taken with this new world was Walt that he began to experiment on his own. Most of Kansas City Film Ad's animated films were produced using jointed cutout figures; this kind of film could be produced quickly and cheaply, but Walt soon tired of it. Hand-drawn animation, in which the drawing actually seemed to have a life of its own, was far more interesting to him. Borrowing a stop-motion camera from his boss, Walt built a makeshift camera stand in his garage at home. He began to produce a series of Newman Laugh-O-grams, short reels of advertisements and animated topical gags, for a local theater chain. These reels included both "lightning sketches"—vignettes in which Walt's own hand seemed to be sketching a detailed drawing at lightning speed—and some fully animated scenes.
"We got books on animation and started to study." — Walt Disney
Encouraged by the success of this experiment, Walt recruited Rudy Ising and a few other artists and started work on a one-reel story cartoon, Little Red Riding Hood, based on the traditional fairy tale but enlivened with Jazz Age gags. As it neared completion early in 1922, Walt's entrepreneurial spirit reasserted itself, and he established his first animation studio: Laugh-O-gram Films Inc. Walt's Laugh-O-grams were a series of modernized fairy tales, beginning with Little Red Riding Hood. The eager young artists learned and refined their craft with each new film, and their cartoons took on a full range of gray tones and other effects.
But Walt and his staff, inexperienced in the ways of business, entered into an ill-advised contract with a distributor that was less than reliable, Soon Laugh-O-gram was in financial trouble, and Walt was tackling new projects in an effort to keep the little company afloat. One especially ambitious film, started in the spring of 1923, was Alice's Wonderland. This film began with a live-action story in which a little girl visited an animation studio—Laugh-O-gram's own office—and later, excited by what she had seen, dreamed her way into a cartoon world. Walt took a justifiable pride in Alice's Wonderland and began to write to potential distributors, including Margaret Winkler in New York, proposing an ongoing series of Alice films.
By the summer of 1923, however, it was clearly too late to save Laugh-O-gram Films. The little company declared bankruptcy. Walt, still buoyantly optimistic and carrying a print of Alice's Wonderland under his arm, boarded a train for Hollywood.
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| 2. Hollywood (Disney Bros., Ub Iwerks, Alice Comedies, Oswald) |
In the summer of 1923, Walt arrived in Hollywood and was taken in by his uncle Robert, who had relocated there with his new wife Charlotte. Walt pursued his ambition to work in the movies, but openings at the studios were scarce, and he soon returned to his idea for a series of Alice Comedies. Margaret Winkler, on screening Alice's Wonderland, liked the concept and contracted to distribute a series of twelve pictures. On the night he received her telegram, Walt went straight to nearby Sawtelle Veterans' Hospital, where his brother, Roy, was recuperating, found his way to Roy's bedside, and proposed that they go into business together. Roy left the hospital the next morning, and in October 1923, the Disney Bros. studio was born.
"I came to Hollywood and arrived here in August 1923 with $40 in my pocket and a coat and a pair of trousers that didn't match." — Walt Disney
The Alice Comedies became Walt's first successful series and continued for the next three and a half years. The role of Alice was initially played by Virginia Davis (who had appeared in Alice's Wonderland) and then was taken over, in turn, by three other young actresses. The series continued to use the format of the first film: Alice would enter a cartoon world and interact with the cartoon creatures there, principally with a black cat who was eventually named Julius.
At first Walt himself did all the animation for the Alice Comedies, but soon he began to recruit additional artists, notably Ub Iwerks and other friends from Kansas City. By the end of 1924, Walt had hired enough animators that he himself had been able to withdraw from animation altogether, the better to concentrate on direction and story work, at which he excelled. Among his other new employees was a lovely young inker named Lillian Bounds. A romance soon sprang up between Walt and Lillian, and in July 1925 they were married.
During the run of the Alice Comedies, Walt gained invaluable experience as a filmmaker and producer. His distributor, Margaret Winkler, married Charles B. Mintz in 1923, and Walt found himself corresponding regularly with the critical and sometimes hostile Mintz. But the Alice Comedies continued their modest popularity, and Walt's skill and confidence as a filmmaker grew steadily. In 1926 the Disney studio moved into new quarters on Hyperion Avenue. Over the next decade, the Hyperion studio continued to thrive, and in time it would become the birthplace of some of Walt's greatest films.
By 1927, Walt, feeling increasingly restricted by the demands of live action in the Alice Comedies, determined to end them and start an all-animated series. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a spunky, energetic new character, made his public debut in Trolley Troubles in July 1927 and quickly became a cartoon star. Distributed by a major studio, Universal Pictures, the Oswald cartoons were soon shown in bigger and more prestigious theaters.
But Mintz had been maneuvering behind Walt's back, and when Walt, traveling with Lilly, went east in February 1928 to negotiate a second Oswald contract, he was confronted with an unpleasant surprise. Mintz had secretly signed up most of Walt's animation staff and plainly expected Walt to give up his status as an independent producer and become an employee of Winkler Pictures. Instead, Walt relinquished both Oswald and the defecting animators. It was the latest in a series of hard lessons for Walt. From that point on, he decided, he would not deal with middlemen. He would create a new series starring a new character, and this time the Disney studio would retain full ownership of the character and the films.
It all started with a mouse.
During the train ride back to California with Lilly, one of the most momentous events of Walt's career occurred: the birth of the character who would be christened Mickey Mouse. Ub Iwerks, who had remained loyal, worked with Walt to help develop the new character. The first two Mickey shorts were produced as silent pictures, but for the third entry, Steamboat Willie, Walt made the decision to join the talking picture revolution and produce a sound cartoon. During the summer of 1928, he and his staff worked to produce their film, carefully tailoring it to fit a musical score with voices and sound effects. Then, armed with the score and the completed film, Walt returned to New York. Working with independent producer Pat Powers, he added a sound track to his cartoon.
Steamboat Willie opened on November 18, 1928, at the Colony Theater in New York and was an immediate hit. For Walt, it was the beginning of an extraordinary success story.
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| 3. New Horizons in the 1930s (Mickey Mouse, Silly Symphonies, Diane & Sharon Disney) |
The 1930s witnessed a phenomenal creative explosion at the Walt Disney Studio. Building on his success with Mickey Mouse, Walt immediately launched an additional series of cartoons, based on Carl Stalling's idea for a "musical novelty” reel. The result was the Silly Symphonies, an innovative series of one-reel shorts that began with The Skeleton Dance in 1929 and continued to appear for a full decade afterward. Unlike most cartoon series, the Silly Symphonies were not built around a single, continuing character, but introduced new characters in each picture. Unified (at first) only by their common emphasis on must, the Symphonies became an award wiming showcase for the art of animation. They brought a new level of prestige to the studio, and to ammation itself.
Meanwhile, Mickey Mouse continued to flourish. The 1930s were Mickey's peak years—he appeared in his best films (his voice on the sound tracks provided by Walt himself), and also in a newspaper comic strip and an ever-increasing assortment of licensed character merchandise. Minnie Mouse, his sweetheart, had appeared in his earliest pictures and continued to thrive alongside him. Gradually more characters were added to the supporting cast: Pluto, a dim-witted hound; Dippy Dawg, a humanized dog who later evolved into Goofy; and a raucous, squawking duck named Donald. All these characters enjoyed a popularity of their own. In time, Donald Duck's popularity would surpass even Mickey's.
Behind the scenes, however, the Disney brothers experienced another serious setback when Pat Powers, their distributor and erstwhile benefactor, tried to take over their business. Early in 1930, Powers hired away Ub lwerks and Carl Stalling, two key members of the studio staff. Walt and Roy quickly rallied, hiring new artists and musicians and severing their ties with Powers. Columbia Pictures, which was already distributing the Silly Symphonies, took over distribution of the Mickey Mouse series as well. (Later the Disneys would move to still more prestigious distributors: United Artists in 1932 and RKO Radio Pictures in 1937.) The Powers Cinephone sound-recording system meanwhile was soon replaced by the technically superior RCA system.
Perhaps the most important Disney innovation of the 1930s was the art of personality animation—the expression of a character's personality through the way the character moved.
In one delightful, innovative cartoon after another, the studio transformed the face of animation. Among the studio's developments of the 1930s were:
COLOR. Walt had long wanted to produce his cartoons in color, but had been dissatisfied with the color processes available. The introduction of Technicolor's new three-strip process in 1932 finally provided the full, rich palette of colors he had been seeking. Flowers and Trees, a black-and-white Silly Symphony, was remade in Technicolor and caused a sensation in theaters, and soon all the Symphonies were being produced in color. Beginning with The Band Concert in 1935, the Mickey Mouse series also appeared in Technicolor.
DEPTH. Animated cartoons were commonly shot on a flat camera table, which was fine for most purposes but could not suggest three-dimensional settings. As Walt's cartoon world became increasingly elaborate, he sought a way to create a convincing illusion of depth in his films. The answer was the multi-plane camera crane, a towering device that added greatly to the cost of production, but made captivating new effects possible. The multiplane made its public debut in a 1937 Silly Symphony, The Old Mill.
CHARACTER. Perhaps the most important Disney innovation of the 1930s was the art of personality animation—the expression of a character's personality through the way the character moved. The studio achieved a breakthrough in this area with Three Little Pigs, a Silly Symphony featuring three pigs and a wolf with distinct, appealing personalities. Three Little Pigs scored a sensational success in 1933 and was followed by more films featuring a gallery of engaging, memorable characters.
The 1930s were a decade of great personal and professional growth for Walt Disney. Privately, he and Lilly were blessed by the births of their daughters, Diane and Sharon. Professionally, Walt soared to new heights as he developed and refined the art of animation. His efforts were recognized and respected by Hollywood and the world: his films were honored with Academy Awards and other tributes, and Walt himself was showered with distinctions, including honorary degrees from Harvard and Yale. As the decade drew to a close, it seemed that no goal was beyond his grasp.
"and I'll huff and I'll puff..."
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| 4. The Move to Features: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Snow White, Hyperion Studio, Animation Training) |
Having overcome so many of the perceived limitations of animated cartoons. Walt now challenged the limits of the one-reel short and set out to produce a feature-length film. For his story, he chose the traditional fairy tale "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." The production of Snow White (which Walt accomplished while still maintaining his output of Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony shorts) would take four years and would prove one of the greatest challenges of his career. Some industry insiders predicted that it would fail disastrously.
This exciting venture reflected the restless, creative spirit that prevailed at Walt's Hyperion studio during the 1930s. As part of his preparation for the feature, Walt instituted a training program for the animators. Art instructor Don Graham was hired to teach a series of studio classes, focusing not on the making of static drawings, but on the study and analysis of movement. Walt insisted that his artists study live models and animals, not to duplicate reality in their animation, but to use it as a basis for convincing fantasy. Besides teaching the classes, Graham also helped recruit new artists for Snow White.
The training and the increased workforce were necessary, for this film offered the animators new and formidable challenges. The Seven Dwarfs represented an extreme exercise in personality animation: here were seven characters, all of similar height and appearance, each of whom had to be clearly distinguishable from all the others. Walt gave them names that expressed their personal traits, and, in numerous story conferences, worked with the artists and writers to develop a carefully delineated personality for each dwarf. In the finished film, the dwarfs emerged as seven distinct individuals. Snow White herself, along with the Prince and the Queen, presented an entirely different challenge: that of creating a convincing human character who moved in a believable way. Artists with expertise in human anatomy were assigned to these characters, and a young dancer, Marjorie Belcher, modeled for Snow White.
The key to the development of Snow White was the story. Walt was acknowledged by his staff as a master storyteller, and many of his artists remembered their introduction to the feature project: an evening meeting on the soundstage, during which Walt told the story of Snow White and acted all the parts. In succeeding months he worked closely with the story department, adding new scenes, removing old ones, and refining the film's continuity. Walt maintained his focus on the overall arc of the story; some sequences that were entertaining in themselves—including a "Soup Sequence" that had already been animated—were removed because they did not contribute to the feature as a whole.
The finished film owed much to its music, which included eight songs by staff composer Frank Churchill. The songs were published in sheet-music form and issued in a special sound track record album, and some achieved success in their own right in the popular music market. This was only a small part of the film's publicity and promotion; a wide variety of Snow White books, toys, and other merchandise was marketed in coordination with the release of the film.
"All the Hollywood brass turned out for my cartoon! That was the thing, and went way back to when I first came out here and went to my first premiere. I just hoped that someday they'd be going in to a premiere of a cartoon." — Walt Disney
The making of Snow White was recognized from the start as a risky venture, and in the closing months of production, as costs climbed to astronomical new heights, the risk became greater than ever. Walt was reluctantly persuaded to show the unfinished feature to Joe Rosenberg, of the Bank of America, who recognized the potential of this captivating film and extended the studio the necessary credit to finish it. In the end, Walt's gamble was vindicated on December 21, 1937, when the world premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was held at Hollywood's Carthay Circle Theatre. An audience of hardened industry professionals embraced the film ecstatically, and Walt and his artists were reassured. Confounding the pessimists, Snow White went on to achieve an enormous worldwide success, and laid the groundwork for even more ambitious projects.
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00:00:00–00:09:59
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TRITON: Yes.
FLOUNDER: Ariel, wait for me.
ARIEL: Flounder, don't be such a guppy.
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00:10:00–00:19:59
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ROSCOE: You guys miss us?
SYKES: I don't think you grasp
EINSTEIN: Yeah. And you're okay, too.
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00:20:00–00:29:59
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DODGER: You help Tito.
JENNY: Winston, listen to this.
ATTINA: What is with her lately?
WINSTON: Why me? Today of all days.
ANDRINA: Ariel, dear, time to come out.
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00:30:00–00:39:59
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SEAHORSE: Sebastian!
RITA: Oh, that poor little kid.
SNOW WHITE: Uh-uh, uh-uh!
URSULA: Come in. Come in, my child.
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00:40:00–00:49:59
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GRUMPY: You don't...
FAGIN: Oh, it's hopeless.
BASHFUL: Ain't he sweet?
HAPPY: Never say die. Never say die.
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00:50:00–00:59:59
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FRANCIS: Goodness!
SCUTTLE: Nothing is happening.
TITO: Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go!
DOC: Now don't you worry about us.
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01:00:00–01:09:59
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SEBASTIAN: Ariel, grab onto that.
ERIC: Whoa! Hang on, I've got ya.
GRIMSBY: Oh, yes, of course, Eric,
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01:10:00–01:19:59
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CHEF LOUIS: Ah-ha!
PRINCE: That has possessed me
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| 5. "We Were in a New Business" (Burbank Studio, Bambi, Pinocchio, Sorcerer's Apprentice) |
The success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs marked a profound turning point for Walt Disney. Freed from the financial restrictions that had bound him for so long, he was able to indulge his most ambitious ideas. In the summer of 1938, he and Roy started construction on a new, state-of-the-art studio in Burbank, California. As contrasted with the crowded, haphazard conditions that had marked the Hyperion Avenue location, the design of the new studio (by architect Kem Weber) afforded maximum comfort and efficiency for the making of animated films. By the spring of 1940 this beautiful facility was finished, and the staff had moved in. Some artists luxuriated in their new surroundings, but others felt increasingly isolated from the boss and from each other.
While the Burbank studio took shape, Walt and his staff were going ahead with the production of new and ambitious feature-length films. Bambi, based on the book by Felix Salten, had been started in 1937, even before the completion of Snow White, and for a time it was planned as the second Disney feature. But Bambi posed technical challenges that delayed its production. In particular, Walt and his artists were determined that the deer in the film should not be the cuddly cartoon deer of earlier pictures, but should convincingly represent real deer in the forest—while still retaining a full range of facial expressions. In extensive training sessions on animal anatomy, and through the study of live animals, both in captivity and filmed in the wild, the animators worked to achieve this goal. Bambi was not completed and released until 1942.
Meanwhile, the second Disney feature to emerge was Pinocchio, Collodi's story of the adventures of a living puppet. Maintaining the same high standard of character animation that had distinguished Snow White, this film added a new level of production gloss, and in particular, sophisticated effects animation: glistening highlights, rounded surfaces, and eerily atmospheric underwater scenes. In the end. Pinocchio became the most lavish, lovingly detailed animated feature in history, and one of the most expensive. A cricket that had been a minor character in the book was transformed into Jiminy Cricket, one of the film's central characters, who served as Pinocchio's conscience. Show-business veteran Cliff Edwards found a second career as the voice of Jiminy Cricket.
Among the new Disney developments at this time was the Character Model Department. Headed by Joe Grant, this department produced not only model sheets but actual three-dimensional models of major characters. By turning these models, the animators could instantly see how the characters looked from any angle. New technical developments, too, proliferated, including refinements to the original multiplane camera. Eager to take full advantage of this device, the artists pushed it to the limit of its capabilities. Some "multiplane" scenes became so elaborate that even the standard multiplane cranes could not accommodate them; instead, they were filmed on horizontal tracks on the soundstage.
"We don't actually make films for children. We make films that children can enjoy along with their parents." – Walt Disney
"Walt was really imbuing all of us with something that made us feel that we were part of a renaissance in the animated cartoon business." — Mel Shaw, animator
As Walt's prestige continued to increase in the late 1930s, prominent artists and writers sought him out. Some, like Alexander Woollcott and Frank Lloyd Wright, were invited to lecture at the studio; others, like Oskar Fischinger, actually worked on Disney films. Walt's casual conversation with conductor Leopold Stokowski led Stokowski to participate in producing a unique short, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, starring Mickey Mouse and set to the original Paul Dukas score, played by a full orchestra. This in turn developed into another strikingly ambitious Disney feature, Fantasia, with eight classical compositions illustrated by means of animation. The music for this groundbreaking feature was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Stokowski and recorded via an innovative stereophonic sound process dubbed Fantasound. Walt hoped to exhibit Fantasia in concert halls and to continue to produce new segments for it.
Unfortunately, his plans were scaled back after the film's disappointing box-office reception. For most of its exhibition life, Fantasia would be shown in theaters with a standard sound track. Compounding the disappointment, none of these subsequent features duplicated the spectacular worldwide success of Snow White during their initial releases. The war in Europe, which was expanding into a world war and effectively closing the European film markets to American producers, significantly reduced the returns on these films. And the war and other events would continue to alter Walt's course during the early 1940s.
The unnamed sorcerer in The Sorcerer's Apprentice was nicknamed Yen Sid ("Disney" spelled backward) by the Disney artists. Leopold Stokowski suggested the title Fantasia, which literally means "A medley of familiar themes, with variations and interludes."
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00:00:00–00:09:59
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MUFASA: Look, Simba.
FRIEND OWL: Come on. (SHOOING)
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00:10:00–00:19:59
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FAIRY: No, Pinocchio.
MRS. HARE: Thumper.
NALA: It's really creepy.
SARABI: And it's time for yours.
MAURICE: We should be there by now.
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00:20:00–00:29:59
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SIMBA: Come here!
SHENZI: Ooh, it tingles me.
ABU: Yoo-hoo! Aladdin! Hello!
GASTON: Who does she think she is?
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00:30:00–00:39:59
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BEAST: What?
THUMPER: Hiya, Bambi.
ZAZU: Oh, Scar, this is awful!
HONEST JOHN: (SIGHS) Splendid!
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00:40:00–00:49:59
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THUMPER: Hello, Bambi.
STROMBOLI: Get along there.
LUMIERE: Life is so unnerving
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00:50:00–00:59:59
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BELLE: New and a bit alarming
JASMINE: Just go jump off a balcony!
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01:00:00–01:09:59
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FALINE: Bambi.
ALADDIN: Look, I... I'm sorry.
COGSWORTH: Now it's too late.
GREAT PRINCE: Get up, Bambi.
PINOCCHIO: Father? Father, it's me.
LAMPWICK: Heh, some fun, huh, kid?
SULTAN: Find him! Search everywhere!
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01:10:00–01:19:59
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NALA: Simba, wait up!
JIMINY: I gotta get in! My pal's in there.
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01:20:00–01:29:59
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JAFAR: Shut up!
GEPPETTO: It's no use. We're done for!
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| 6. "The Toughest Period in My Whole Life" (1941 Disney Strike, World War II, Dumbo, El Grupo) |
As the 1930s ended and the 1940s began, Walt was assailed by personal and professional crises. The deaths of his parents—first Flora, in November 1938, then Elias, in September 1941—were personal losses that moved him deeply, but which he kept carefully hidden from the outside world. Meanwhile, at the studio, an artists' strike erupted in the spring of 1941. Labor unrest had been brewing in American industry at large, and early attempts to unionize the Disney artists had led to a dispute between competing factions. Preliminary talks between the studio and the artists were unsuccessful, and on May 28, a group of the artists walked out. Walt initially believed that the strike would be settled quickly, but instead it dragged on for months.
Eventually—after the intervention of a federal mediator and a period of several weeks during which the studio closed its doors altogether—the strike was resolved. But by that time the damage had been done. The strike would remain a painful crisis in Disney studio history, creating bitter divisions among former friends that would not soon be forgotten. Walt's own clear memories of the ordeal, and his conviction that the strike had been Communist-influenced, resurfaced six years later as he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
Along with these events there was a truly global crisis: World War II. The war's impact on Walt and his studio was immediate: on the same day Pearl Harbor was attacked, army units charged with protecting the nearby Lockheed plant moved into the Disney studio in Burbank to use it as a base. The war would also effect a marked change in the studio's production. Some theatrical features were already in progress, Bambi, for example, with its complex animation challenges, would not be completed and released until August 1942. In the meantime, Walt, mindful of the box-office losses incurred by expensive epic films like Pinocchio and Fantasia, had also started a more modest feature, Dumbo. Released in October 1941, Dumbo represented a return to the Disney studio's basic strengths: strong storytelling and compelling character animation. It was a critical and financial success, and remains today one of the best-remembered Disney classics.
With the entry by the U.S. into the war, however, the studio's production underwent a radical change. Walt contracted to produce a series of training films for the military; his public-service shorts for theatrical showing included The New Spirit, which encouraged Americans to pay their income taxes and support the war effort, and Out of the Frying Pan into the Firing Line, which promoted conservation. Another war-related production was an unusual feature called Victory Through Air Power, based on the book by Alexander de Seversky, which Walt undertook as a personal initiative because he believed in Seversky's ideas. Among the Disney propaganda cartoons during the war years was Der Fuehrer's Face, which won the Academy Award® for Best Short Subject of 1942. The studio's wartime efforts also included nonfilm activities, among them the creation of hundreds of insignia, at no charge, for various branches of the military.
One activity only indirectly related to the war was Walt's participation in the government's Good Neighbor program, which was designed to promote friendly relations between the U.S, and the countries of Latin America. In 1941, Walt and a group of his artists, nicknamed El Grupo, agreed to conduct a tour of South America, forging bonds of goodwill even as they gathered their visual and musical impressions of Brazil, Argentina, and other countries. Returning to the studio, they distilled those impressions into two feature-length films, Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros, along with a variety of short subjects for both theatrical and educational showing.
All these endeavors tested Walt's and the studio's strength, but the end of the war in 1945 brought challenges of a different kind. During the turbulent years of the strike and the war, Walt had drastically revised the organization of his studio, and almost all of his production had been war-related. Now he and Roy found themselves with reduced resources, and suddenly operating without the government contracts that had sustained them for several years. Thanks to the loyal support of A. P. Giannini, the Bank of America agreed to extend their loans; but they knew that somehow they must rebuild their business.