31. Larson interview.
32. Campbell Grant, interview with Gray, February 2, 1977.
33. Thor Putnam, interview, December 1, 1990.
34. Homer Brightman, interview with Gray, February 14, 1977.
35. Joe Grant, interview, October 14, 1988.
36. Jackson, 1973 interview.
37. Natwick interview.
38. Adamson/Huemer.
39. Adamson/Huemer.
40. Cannon’s memo is dated March 1, but it was typed by a stenographer on March 4; Disney replied on March 5, WDA. Cannon, who joined the Disney staff in 1927, left in 1940.
41. Ken Anderson, interview, December 7, 1990.
42. Walt Disney to Bob Wickersham, memorandum, June 1, 1935, WDA.
43. Walt Disney to Babbitt, memorandum, June 1, 1935, WDA.
44. “British Crowd Mobs Disneys,” Los Angeles Times, June 13, 1935, AMPAS.
45. “Disney and Wife to Meet Notables,” Hollywood Citizen-News, July 20, 1935, AMPAS.
46. Roy Disney, February 1968 interview.
47. “Mickey Mouse Creator Returns in Triumph,” Los Angeles Examiner, August 2, 1935, AMPAS.
48. “Walt Disney and Wife Home from Europe,” Los Angeles Examiner, August 6, 1935, AMPAS.
49. Tytla to “Anna,” September 9, 1935, JC/NYU.
50. Louella O. Parsons, “Walt Disney’s Elaborate Plans; Will Spend Fifteen Months Making First Full Length Cartoon,” Los Angeles Examiner, August 11, 1935, AMPAS.
51. Walt Disney, memorandum, “Action Analysis,” October 17, 1935, WDA. The memo was addressed to all the studio’s directors, animators, writers, assistant directors, assistant animators, and layout men.
52. Ham Luske, “General Outline of Animation Theory and Practice,” December 31, 1935, mimeographed, Kerlan Collection, University of Minnesota Library.
53. “Production Notes—Shorts,” mimeographed, WDA.
54. Walt Disney and Paul Hopkins to Tytla, memorandum, “Credit Rating ‘Cock o’ the Walk,’ ” December 20, 1935, WDA.
55. Walt Disney to Graham, memorandum, December 23, 1935, WDA.
56. Jackson, 1973 interview.
57. Churchill, “Mickey Mouse Enters Art’s Temple,” 13.
58. Ward Kimball, interview, November 2, 1976.
59. Keith Scott provided the author with a tape recording of this program. According to Scott, Hind’s Hall of Fame, sponsored by Hind’s Honey and Almond Cream, was broadcast only in 1934.
60. Dolores Voght, undated interview with Hubler, BU/RH.
61. Marcellite Garner Lincoln to author, March 15, 1978.
62. Walt Disney, “Mickey Mouse Presents,” in We Make the Movies, ed. Nancy Naumberg (New York, 1937), 260; Sharpsteen, 1976 interview.
63. “Production Notes—Shorts.”
64. Walt Disney to Hopkins and others, memorandum, “Production Notes on Snow White,” November 25, 1935, WDA.
65. Maurice Noble, interview, December 3, 1990.
66. “Routine Procedure on Feature Production,” undated, photocopy, WDA.
67. Champion, telephone interview.
68. Bambi sweatbox notes, September 1, 1939, WDA.
69. Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life (New York, 1982), 320.
70. Perce Pearce, lecture, “Acting and Pantomime,” March 9, 1939, WDA.
71. Graham, action-analysis lecture, July 26, 1937, mimeographed, WDA.
72. Snow White meeting notes, dwarfs personality meeting, December 22, 1936, WDA. Disney’s continuity was extracted from these notes and hectographed for general distribution in the studio.
73. Creedon, memorandum, “The Meeting and the Bed,” November 15, 1936, WDA.
74. Snow White story meeting notes, sequence 6B, soup sequence, November 30, 1936, WDA.
75. Snow White story meeting notes, sequences 11A and 11B, meeting and bed building, February 23, 1937, WDA.
76. Snow White layout meeting notes, January 25, 1937, WDA.
77. Lundy, 1973 interview.
78. Robert Stokes, interview with Gray, March 9, 1977.
79. Huemer, 1973 interview.
80. Jackson, 1973 interview.
81. Tom Codrick, lecture, January 19, 1939, WDA.
82. Snow White meeting notes, “Layout Meeting—Discussion of Sequence Problems,” February 22, 1937, WDA.
83. Snow White meeting notes, sequence 3B, Snow White and animals in the woods, September 3, 1936, WDA.
84. Snow White meeting notes, sequence 4A, dwarfs at the mine, October 2, 1936, WDA.
85. Hand, “ ‘Staging’ as Applied to Presentation of Story and Gag Ideas,” class conducted October 13, 1938. The transcript of this class, part of the Disney studio’s “development program,” comes from a 1939 compilation called “Story Department Reference Material,” photocopy, AC.
86. Snow White story meeting notes, Sequences 15A and 16A (SW dead to end of picture), May 6, 1937.
87. Fantasia meeting notes [“Clair de Lune”], December 8, 1938, WDA.
88. Thomas and Johnston, Illusion of Life, 471.
89. Graham, action-analysis lecture, April 26, 1937, mimeographed, WDA.
90. Pearce, “Acting and Pantomime.”
91. Marceil Clark Ferguson, interview, October 10, 1987.
92. Mary Eastman, interview, May 29, 1983.
93. Margaret Smith, interview, December 2, 1990.
94. Dodie Monahan, interview with Gray, March 28, 1977.
95. An Introduction to the Walt Disney Studios (Los Angeles, 1938), 18, AC. This thirty-one-page booklet was “a brief outline of the studio’s principal departments and an explanation to artists of its employment policies.”
96. The exact figure is $1,488,422.74 in a March 29, 1947, balance sheet that Walt Disney Productions submitted to RKO during negotiations for a merger of some kind, RKO.
97. Walt Disney, “Growing Pains,” Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, January 1941, 35.
98. Roy Disney to Walt Disney, memorandum, September 10, 1937, WDA.
99. Jackson, 1973 interview. Jackson spoke of the preview as having taken place at the Carthay Circle Theatre, where Snow White had its premiere, but he was evidently confusing the two occasions.
100. Dorothy Ducas, “The Father of Snow White,” This Week Magazine, June 19, 1938, AMPAS.
101. Walt Disney Productions, Prospectus, April 2, 1940, 25, Baker.
102. “Walt Disney Honored by Degree from Yale,” Los Angeles Herald, June 22, 1938; “Harvard Confers Degree on Disney,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1938, AMPAS.
103. “Disney Honored, Wishes He Had Gone to College,” New York Herald-Tribune, June 24, 1938, AMPAS.
104. Walt Disney, “Mickey Mouse Presents,” 271.
105. Douglas W. Churchill, “Disney’s ‘Philosophy,’ ” New York Times Magazine, March 6, 1938, 9, 23.
106. Robert Wilson, ed., The Film Criticism of Otis Ferguson (Philadelphia, 1971), 209. Ferguson’s review was published in the New Republic’s issue of January 26, 1938.
CHAPTER 5 “A Drawing Factory”
1. Michael Broggie, Walt Disney’s Railroad Story (Pasadena, 1997), 43. Disney’s association with Sugar Bowl has been chronicled on a number of Web sites, including the “When Skiing Was!” section of the “First Tracks!” online ski magazine (www.firsttracksonline.com). The Art of Skiing (1941), a Goofy cartoon, shows a lodge supposedly based on the one at Sugar Bowl, as well as a peak modeled on Sugar Bowl’s “Mount Disney.” Disney’s involvement with Hollywood Park is noted at the track’s Web site (www.hollywoodpark.com). He still owned shares in both Sugar Bowl and the Hollywood Turf Club, the track’s owner, at the time of his death.
2. That is the figure in two family-authorized books, Broggie, Walt Disney’s Railroad Story, 43; and Greene and Greene, Inside the Dream, 45 (see Preface, n. 1).
3. Robert Stack, undated interview posted on the Walt Disney Family Museum Web site in 2006.
4. Dorothy Ducas, “Th
e Father of Snow White,” This Week Magazine, June 19, 1938, AMPAS. This may be the only reference in print to Disney’s injury from around the time the injury occurred. Broggie, Walt Disney’s Railroad Story, 44, says that “a ball hit Walt on the back of his neck,” fracturing several vertebrae. His injury was probably painful but must not have interfered seriously with his work. As with his 1931 breakdown, it seems to have made little or no impact on the studio. It is at least possible that Disney, with his tendency to self-dramatize, used his injury as an excuse to cut back on a hazardous sport he was growing tired of.
5. Frank Bogert, telephone interview, August 5, 2005.
6. Hand, 1973 interview. According to an entry in Disney’s desk diary, he rode with the Rancheros as late as May 7, 1942, WDA.
7. Garity’s typewritten “Daily Reports” (as each sheet is headed), in two loose-leaf binders, cover the period from August 1937 through August 1938 (in vol. 1)—although there are actually only two pages from 1937—and September through December 1938 (in vol. 2, which also holds a few stray pages from later years), WDA.
8. A full account of this sad episode is in Thomas, Building a Company, 25–26, although Thomas incorrectly gives the date of Flora’s death as November 28.
9. Tino Balio, United Artists: The Company Built by the Stars (Madison, 1976), 131.
10. Balio, United Artists, 136–37.
11. From copies of both contracts in the RKO files, RKO.
12. 13 NLRB 873.
13. Sharpsteen, 1976 interview.
14. Hand to author, December 4, 1976.
15. Luske, lecture, “Character Handling,” October 6, 1938, WDA.
16. Pinocchio story meeting notes, December 3, 1937, AC.
17. Pinocchio story meeting notes, December 11, 1937, AC.
18. Pinocchio story meeting notes, December 11, 1937; Pinocchio story meeting notes, sequence 1, January 6, 1938, AC.
19. Hand lecture at the Rank studio, undated but numbered as the fourth lecture in the second series, DH.
20. Thomas and Johnston, The Illusion of Life, 221.
21. Frank Thomas, 1987 joint interview with Johnston.
22. Steve Hulett, “The Making of ‘Pinocchio,’ Walt Disney Style,” San Francisco Chronicle, Datebook sec., December 24, 1978.
23. Pinocchio story meeting notes, Boobyland and escape, December 8, 1938, WDA.
24. Leopold Stokowski to Hubler, December 5, 1967, photocopy, WDA.
25. Gregory Dickson to Walt Disney, October 18, 1937, WDA.
26. Walt Disney to Dickson, October 26, 1937, WDA.
27. Garity, “Daily Report” for January 9, 1938. The recording began at midnight, and Garity’s report is largely concerned with his preparations on January 9 (a Sunday) for the recording that night.
28. A “Tabulation of Answers to Questionnaires—Sorcerer’s Apprentice” mentions that a “rough preview” was held for studio employees on that date, WDA.
29. Jackson, 1973 interview.
30. Fantasia story meeting notes, September 14, 1938, WDA.
31. Fantasia story meeting notes [“Nutcracker Suite”], September 28, 1938, WDA.
32. Fantasia story meeting notes [“Rite of Spring”], October 19, 1938, WDA.
33. Alice in Wonderland story meeting notes, January 14, 1939, WDA.
34. Pinocchio meeting notes, contemplated changes in sequences 1.5, 1.6, and 1.7, January 12, 1939, WDA.
35. Walt Disney to Sharpsteen, memorandum, June 20, 1938, BS; Pinocchio story meeting notes, sequences 7–12, February 16, 1938, photocopy, WDA.
36. Gordon Legg, interview with Gray, December 5, 1976.
37. Lincoln, March 15, 1978.
38. Sharpsteen to author, November 12, 1980.
39. Hugh Fraser, interview with Gray, March 31, 1977. Fraser’s scene is identified in the Pinocchio draft—the scene-by-scene breakdown of who animated what—as scene 30 in sequence 7.
40. Bambi sweatbox notes, September 1, 1939, WDA.
41. Fantasia story meeting notes [“Pastoral Symphony”], August 8, 1939, WDA.
42. Fantasia meeting notes, July 14, 1939, WDA.
43. Fantasia story meeting notes, September 26, 1938, WDA.
44. Prospectus.
45. “Disney to Give Staff 20 Pct. of Profit on ‘Snow White,’ ” Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express, June 28, 1938, B8. As Disney said in January 1940, when discussing a profit-sharing plan with some of his key employees, “the Snow White profits are back in Pinocchio.” Transcript of meeting, “Studio Profit-Sharing Plan,” January 30, 1940, WDA.
46. Sharpsteen, interview, January 3, 1979; Frank Thomas to author, August 12, 1992.
47. Lincoln, March 15, 1978.
48. Cornett Wood, telephone interview with Gray, March 16, 1977.
49. For an account of what may be the only extant example of such a personal reference, see John Canemaker, “Secrets of Disney’s Visual Effects: The Schultheis Notebooks,” Print, March–April 1996, 66–73, 118. Herman Schultheis, who compiled notebooks illustrated with his own photographs that showed how various effects were achieved, worked in the department called the Process Lab from February 1938 to June 1940, and again from December 1940 to January 1941.
50. George Rowley, interview, February 11, 1990.
51. Al Perkins, “Analysis of the Book ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ ” September 6, 1938, WDA.
52. Alice in Wonderland story meeting notes, September 20, 1939, WDA.
53. Ducas, “The Father of Snow White.”
54. Waterbury, “What Snow White’s Father Is Doing Now.”
55. Graham to Finch, July 25, 1972, WDA.
56. Carl Fallberg, interview with Gray, April 1, 1978; Douglas W. Churchill, “The Hollywood Boys Commune with Nature,” New York Times, August 14, 1938, sec. 9, 3.
57. Fallberg interview.
58. Marc Davis, interview, November 3, 1976.
59. Clair Weeks, interview with Gray, May 13, 1978.
60. Thomas and Johnston, Illusion of Life, 372.
61. Bambi sweatbox notes, first four reels, September 9, 1939, WDA.
62. Bambi story meeting notes, December 11, 1939, WDA.
63. Thomas and Johnston, Illusion of Life, 164.
64. Bambi story meeting notes, sequence 10.1–10.3, Spring, February 3, 1940, WDA.
65. Bambi story meeting notes, sequence 10.1–10.3, Spring, April 19, 1940, WDA.
66. Wood, interview with Gray, November 30, 1976.
67. David Hilberman, interview, October 24, 1976.
68. “Center Theatre to Revert to Films for ‘Pinocchio,’ ” New York Times, January 12, 1940, 12.
69. Walt Disney Productions, 1940 annual report, 2, AC. The Disney Archives holds three pages of undated typewritten notes from an interview with Luske, probably conducted around 1956 by Bob Thomas.
70. Arthur Millier, “Walter in Wonderland,” Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, December 4, 1938, 20, AMPAS.
71. “Studio Profit-Sharing Plan.”
72. “Walt Disney Issue Offered to Public,” New York Times, April 2, 1940, 37.
73. Walt Disney to publicity department, memorandum, July 1, 1940, BU/RH.
74. Dan Noonan, interview with Gray, December 12, 1977; Davis, 1976 interview.
75. Prospectus, 3; 1940 annual report, 7, puts the total at 1,179 as of September 28, 1940.
76. Norman Tate, interview, August 9, 2004.
77. An Introduction to the Walt Disney Studios, 26; Howard Swift, tape-recorded letter to author, November 10, 1976.
78. Martin Provensen, interview, July 4, 1983.
79. Herbert Ryman, interview, July 17, 1987.
80. A. Eisen, “Two Disney Artists,” Crimmer’s, Winter 1975, 40–41.
81. Adrian Woolery, interview with Gray, January 13, 1977.
82. Joe Grant, 1988 interview.
83. John P. Miller, interview, October 6, 1991; Provensen interview.
84. Jim Bodrero, interview with Gray, January 29, 1977.
85.
Carl Barks, interview, May 30, 1971.
86. Donald’s Roadside Market story meeting notes, August 8, 1939, AC.
87. Legg, interview with Gray, March 13, 1976.
88. The Practical Pig story meeting notes, October 15, 1937, WDA.
89. The Fox Hunt story meeting notes, August 3, 1937, AC.
90. Walt Disney to Chester Cobb, memorandum, July 12, 1937, WDA.
91. Jack Cutting, interview, December 11, 1986.
92. Jackson to author, August 3, 1980.
93. Campbell Grant interview.
94. T. Hee, interview with Gray, April 13, 1977.
95. Hand interview.
96. Campbell Grant interview.
97. Couch, 1977 interview.
98. Jack Hannah, interview, November 3, 1976
99. Leo Salkin, speaking during a conference on writing for animation at the University of Southern California, 1978 (Salkin’s comments were recorded but the date is uncertain).
100. Hee interview.
101. Bill Peet to author, January 20, 1988.
102. Lundy, 1973 interview.
103. Ken Anderson, interviewed by Paul F. Anderson in 1992, in Didier Ghez, ed., Walt’s People: Talking Disney with the Artists Who Knew Him (2005), 1:119.
104. W. E. Garity and J. L. Ledeen, “The New Walt Disney Studio,” Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, January 1941, 4.
105. The details of this transaction are set out in documents filed by Walt Disney Productions in connection with City of Los Angeles v. City of San Fernando, Walt Disney Productions, et al., Superior Court, Los Angeles County, no. C650079 (1956).
106. “Studio Profit-Sharing Plan.”
107. Bulletin (Disney in-house newsletter), September 1, 1939; prospectus, 4.
108. Garity and Ledeen, “New Walt Disney Studio,” 12.
109. Fred Kopietz, interview, April 30, 1991.
110. Bradbury interview; Stephen Bosustow, interview, November 30, 1973.
111. Kimball, interview, June 6, 1969; Kimball, 1976 interview.
112. Van Kaufman, interview, February 23, 1991; Hawley Pratt, interview with Gray, December 15, 1977.
113. Barks to author, May 8, 1975.
114. Jim Korkis, “Jack Hannah, Another Interview,” Animania 23 (March 5, 1982): 19.
115. Testimony of Walter Elias Disney, NLRB/Babbitt, 942.
116. Robert Benchley to Gertrude Darling Benchley, November 3, 1940, Robert Benchley Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.
The Animated Man Page 51