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A Cartoon Menagerie
 
A CARTOON MENAGERIE, 1923-1933
by Katherine and Richard Greene
 
With with Academy Award
Walt with his Academy Award for the creation of Mickey Mouse, 1932
When Walt arrived in California in 1923, he didn't even have enough clothing to fill a shabby suitcase. Ten years later he was the world-famous father of Mickey Mouse and the Silly Symphonies. The story of this incredible decade is replete with enormous disappointments for Walt along with great successes. On two occasions, men he trusted with his career and fortunes turned on him in a totally unanticipated fashion. He drove himself with such unrelenting fervor that toward the end of this period he suffered through an experience he was later to call "a hell of a breakdown." Meanwhile, in 1925, Walt married a young woman named Lillian Bounds. Their romance began when she came to work for him in his fledgling efforts at animation, and their partnership was to last the rest of his life. Lilly accepted Walt's dedication to his work, understood his drive toward perfection, and (though she sometimes fretted over his willingness to risk everything on the next gamble) had absolute faith in his genius. During this time, too, the lifelong collaboration with his brother Roy grew and matured into one that would combine brotherly love with an interdependence that led both to heights that may have been unachievable alone.
 
Within 10 years after his arrival in Hollywood in 1923, Walt Disney was famous around the world as the creator of Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies like "Three Little Pigs." He played polo at the fancy Riviera Club with celebrities like Spencer Tracy and Will Rogers. He had pioneered color and sound cartoons and was beginning to think about yet another revolutionary step with the first feature-length cartoon, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." What a difference a decade makes. Walt boarded the train for California in 1923 with only a pair of pants, some underwear, a checkered coat, a few shirts, and a little cash to his name. In a move that seems daft -- but wouldn't surprise anyone who knew Walt well -- he had purchased a first-class ticket for the journey. "I was in my pants and coat that didn't match," he recalled, "but I was riding first class."
 
Unfortunately, the trip itself was somewhat frustrating. As Walt later told the story, he'd strike up conversations with other passengers, who'd react with less than awe to the news that he intended to make animated cartoons. "It was like sayin' I sweep up the latrines or something," he said. Fortunately for Walt, his Uncle Robert had preceded him in moving out west, so he had someplace to live. Robert was a large, outgoing man who had lost his first wife, Walt's beloved Aunt Margaret, relatively early in life. He later married a woman named Charlotte, and the two of them had a son, Robert Junior. Walt arranged to pay him $5 a week for room and board while he sought his fortune (though there's every reason to suspect that Uncle Robert frequently didn't get his rent). Walt's relationship with his Uncle wasn't always smooth -- Robert had a habit of reminding Walt how much he had helped him. But on balance, Walt's feelings toward his uncle were generally affectionate.
 
Upon first arriving, Walt decided that perhaps he'd give up the animation business and make his way in the film industry. "I was discouraged with animation. . . . "Aesop's Fables" were very successful. "Felix the Cat" was going then. And I just said it was too late. I should have been in the business six years before. . . . I wanted to get into the motion picture business. I wanted to be a director. That was my ambition. My goal was to be a director." This ambitious notion was soon squashed. "I went from one studio to another and I went to the personnel department and everything." The only job Walt actually landed in Hollywood was as a movie extra, riding a horse in a big cavalry charge. It rained the day Walt's scene was to be shot, and Walt was replaced when they rescheduled. "That was the end of my career as an actor," he said. Back to animation -- the only skill Walt really had. He borrowed Uncle Robert's garage and set up shop, creating samples. Soon enough he had a deal to provide cartoons for M. J. Winkler, who had expressed interest in his incomplete "Alice's Wonderland" cartoon, begun in Kansas City.
 
Never a man to delude himself about his strengths and weaknesses, Walt knew that he needed help with the money side of the business. So he convinced Roy to sign himself out of the hospital, where he had been recovering from tuberculosis, and join him. In 1923, they started the Disney Brothers Studio with $200 of Roy's money, $500 borrowed from their Uncle Robert, and $2,500 that Flora and Elias raised by mortgaging their house in Portland. Walt, of course, brought just his own skills to the venture. The two brothers moved in together and quickly discovered that there was such a thing as too much togetherness. After a long day at the studio, living in the same cramped quarters was just a little too much. Tensions grew.
 
Meanwhile, Roy was yearning for Edna Francis, the girl he had begun seeing back in Kansas City when he and Walt were living in the family house on Bellefontaine. Roy was a bank teller at the time and had been holding off on marrying Edna until he advanced a little in his career. After he became ill and was sent out west to recuperate, several years passed before they could be together again. As Roy recalled it, his period living with Walt ended with a dispute over dinner. "I used to go home early to take a nap in the afternoon," he said, "and then come back to the studio and work a couple of hours, then go on home to prepare something for dinner. Well, [Walt] just walked out on my meal one night, and I said, 'OK, to hell with you. If you don't like my cooking, let's quit this business.' So I wrote my girl in Kansas City and suggested she come out and we get married, which she did. And she and I were married on April 12, 1925." The wedding, naturally, was at Uncle Robert's house.
 
Meanwhile, Walt had a girlfriend of his own -- and just three months later, he too would be married. That girl was Lillian Bounds. Her memories of meeting Walt were more concerned with proximity and commerce than romance. "I had come down from Idaho," said Lilly, "and this [girl I knew] came down and said, 'Would you like a job?' And I said, 'Doing what?' And she said, 'Well, I'm working for these two fellows up here and they need somebody to fill in the ink [in cartoons].' She would do the inking and I would do the painting. Anyway, I could walk to work, and I was living with my sister, Hazel. And I said yes." What did she think of her new boss? "Oh, I liked him. But that was another thing. When [the girl] asked me if I'd go up there she said, 'Well, you can come, if you won't vamp the boss.' And I had no idea of vamping him. I never had such a thought in my mind. The guy didn't even have a sweater to take me out anyplace or anything."
 
Walt and Lilly
Walt and Lilly, photographed during Roy and Edna's wedding
 
Soon enough, Walt was interested in the quiet, pretty girl who was working for him. He drove her and another employee home at night -- and was always careful to drop the other girl off first. Lilly would tell stories about life in Idaho with nine sisters and brothers, and Walt was fascinated. He loved her tales of pioneering grandparents. But for some time, Walt turned down Lilly's suggestions that he meet her family. He was embarrassed by his old, worn-out clothes. It is testimony to the fact that Walt was really interested in this girl that he worried about such a thing. When he and Roy finally saved up enough to buy new suits (Walt's, a gray-green number, came with two pairs of pants -- Roy's only one), he was ready to call on her. "How do you like my new suit?" he asked Lilly's sister Hazel and her husband. And so began the courtship. He immediately liked Lilly's family; they were a singing, laughing bunch, somewhat like the family of his childhood friend Walt Pfeiffer, and Walt basked in their warmth. They liked him in turn.
 
About this time Walt bought a secondhand Moon automobile, and he'd take Lilly driving through the orange groves and to dinner at a tearoom on Hollywood Boulevard. Their first big date was to see the musical "No, No, Nanette." Hazel's daughter, Marjorie, was about eight years old at the time. "I slept on the sofa in the living room and Walt would come over and he and Aunt Lilly would be together and talking and whatever they were doing, and I was moved into her bed in her bedroom. Then, when he was ready to go, I made my bed down on the sofa. He was the only one that ever got me in that bed that I didn't fall out of it. He fixed it so and tucked it so that I never fell out of bed. Otherwise, I would always wake up in the morning on the floor."
 
Walt and Lilly spent a fair amount of time at Hazel's house. "My mother was an excellent cook," said Marjorie. "They never could decide whether he was there because of Aunt Lilly or because of my mother's cooking. But I guess it was Aunt Lilly." Meanwhile, back at the office, Walt and Roy repeatedly asked Lilly if she'd please not cash her $15 paycheck. "I happily did so," she said. "I'd keep them. I didn't need them. I'd put them away and then they would use that little bit of money to pay their expenses." Years later, Lilly reported that "he said he married me because he got so far in debt to me." Walt proposed shortly after Roy announced his plans to marry Edna. In home movies of Roy's wedding, one is struck by Walt and Lilly; they are not the center of attention here, and, unconcerned about prying eyes or cameras, are the model of a young couple in love.
 
They went to Lewiston, Idaho, to get married at her brother's house. He was the town's fire chief and had a parlor large enough for the wedding. Lilly, who giggled throughout, wore a lavender dress. Walt presented her with a little white-gold ring with a half-dozen tiny diamonds in it. After the wedding, they honeymooned at Mount Rainier, where from the look of photos that have been preserved of the occasion they were a rather elegant couple. Back in Los Angeles, however, their life was far from elegant. Their first home was a small, one-room apartment with a view of an alley. But they were happy. Though Walt was not known to outsiders as a physically demonstrative man, family members recalled that he never entered his home without hugging and kissing Lilly hello. Still, Lilly had to learn that a marriage to Walt Disney meant a marriage to the studio as well. In the evening, the newly married couple might go out for fun with Roy and Edna or by themselves. But eventually Walt would always indicate that he had to return to the office, and off he and Lilly would traipse. While Walt worked, Lilly slept on the couch. When it was time to go home, perhaps one or two in the morning, Walt would awaken her, lying about the time.
 
The studio was churning out Alice cartoons at an incredible clip. Walt's relationship with his distributor, Charlie Mintz, was fraught with tension, and his own perfectionist tendencies were starting to evidence themselves. He pushed his employees relentlessly. Staffers were required to re-animate sequences, once, twice, five times, until they were acceptable to Walt. Of course, Walt's drive for the best applied to himself more than anyone else. As a result, he fired himself as an artist in order to concentrate on his greater skills as a story man and director. "I was never happy with anything I ever did as an artist," he later said.
 
Staff outside Disney Bros. Studio
Walt and Roy's staff assemble in front of the Disney Brothers Studio at 4649 Kingswell
 
Meanwhile, Walt and Roy decided to change the name of the business from Disney Brothers to Walt Disney Productions. After all, went the logic, that way the public would come to feel that there was a human being behind the product being turned out by the studio, and this would be a powerful marketing tool. One of their employees, Hugh Harman, recalled some harsh conversations between Walt and Roy when this idea was first addressed. But Disney archivist Dave Smith says that Roy claimed the idea for the name change as his own! In fact, given Roy's unassuming nature -- and his dedication to his brother and the business -- it does seem consistent that he would have been willing to forgo glory for the good of the company. As the studio did better, Walt and Lilly moved to a larger apartment, and then, in the fall of 1927, Walt and Roy bought identical prefabricated houses on adjoining lots.
 
At about this time, Walt brought the first of a series of dogs into the Disney household. It wasn't easy -- at first. Walt: "My wife would have nothing to do with dogs. She said, 'They get hair on everything. They're dirty. And there's dog odors.' So I got a book that had to do with dogs and I kept reading about different dogs. And finally I had a story on the chow. The chow did not . . . shed hair. The chow does not have fleas. The chow has very little dog odor. And . . . she said, Well, if I had to have a dog that's the kind of dog I would want. That's all I wanted. The next day I went out and bought a chow and kept it under wraps until Christmas. I got a big hat box, I got a big ribbon on it. When the time came I went over, put the little puppy in the hat box, and when they were all busy I put it over by the tree. And my niece was tipped off, so my wife didn't see me bring it in. So then, my niece went over and got this and she said, 'Oh, who is this for?' It said, 'To Lilly from Santa Claus.' So she brought this big hat box over and put it in front of my wife. And my wife said, 'Oh Walt, you didn't . . . ' and from that time on, that was her baby. I've never seen anybody so crazy over an animal."
 
Walt, Lilly, and Sunnee
Walt and Lilly with their dog, Sunnee, in the early 1930s
 
With the larger quarters the new house afforded, there began something of a Disney tradition that was to last for some time: Lilly's relatives lived with them. At first, it was her mother. Family members recalled him treating his mother-in-law "like a queen." On Sundays he would take Lilly, her mother, and her niece Marjorie out for rides in the car and stop at an ice cream parlor on the way home. The ritual was set. According to Marjorie, "He and I would go in the ice cream parlor and bring out an ice cream cone for Grandma, one for me, one for Aunt Lilly, one for their dog, one for himself. And he would stand by the curb and feed Sunnee her ice cream cone." When Lilly's sister Hazel got divorced, she and daughter Marjorie moved in and stayed for about five years. When they moved out, Lilly's sister Grace took up residence.
 
Walt practiced being a father with Marjorie. She remembers her uncle as a forgiving, loving, gentle man. One time, after she had lived in Walt's house for several years, Marjorie grew annoyed at Walt -- in typical adolescent fashion. "I said, 'Well, you're a self-made man and you worship your maker!'" she recalls. "I don't know where I'd heard this . . . But I'd read it someplace and it seemed appropriate at the time. I turned and went out of the room, and the worst thing was that by the time I got to the bottom of those stairs I heard him laughing. And that just killed me. That just undid the whole thing. I thought I'd stood up on my own and then he was laughing at me. The next weekend, we also had an altercation of some kind and he really lit into me. . . . And the following week up at school, I got a call at study hall to come up to the office. And I went up. Sister Francis [told me my uncle was there to take me to Pasadena]. So I went out and he said he had some film to deliver, which was made up. And we went down and went to a particular ice cream parlor down there that was very popular at that time, and we had hot fudge sundaes. Nothing was said about my being an obnoxious brat or anything like that. . . . He just drove me back up to school, and I kissed him and went in, riding on high. I knew he'd forgiven me. And he knew I'd forgiven him. That was it. He didn't say 'I'm sorry' for anything. Nothing. He just came by and took me out for an ice cream."
 
In early 1928, Walt suffered the now-famous betrayal of Charlie Mintz and his staff, in which Mintz stole away Walt's then-popular cartoon character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, as well as most of Walt's employees. It's hard to know which caused Walt greater pain -- the loss of the character, upon which his studio's success rested, or the loss of his staff, whom he regarded as friends, and many of whom he had brought with him from the early days in Kansas City. More likely it was the latter. Repeatedly in his life, Walt was disappointed by people who didn't see his vision clearly -- and who were willing to leave him. It's unfair to these employees to regard them as renegades or turncoats. For one thing, though Walt was their boss, he was still a very young and relatively unproven man. His artists knew they could draw better than he could and may not have even understood the dramatic nature of his contributions to their work. At heart, they were just people who wanted to make a better living for their families, wherever it was offered. But Walt couldn't understand this outlook. To him, the work was everything; and he knew that his studio was going to do the best work anyplace. Walt bounced back (sort of like the indestructible characters in his cartoons) with Mickey Mouse. Luckily, Ub Iwerks had stayed loyal to Walt when the rest of his staff left him for Mintz. With Ub's help, he quickly had a new line of cartoons to sell. When distributors weren't interested in his new character, Walt took a giant leap of faith and introduced sound into his cartoons.
 
Here again he demonstrated an ability to get involved with unsavory characters. After a depressing quest in New York City for someone who could help him add sound to his cartoons, he discovered a "big, lovable, friendly Irishman" named Pat Powers. Powers was the kind of guy who could charm the birds out of the trees. He certainly had Walt in the palm of his hand quickly enough. "He is personally taking care of me," Walt wrote home. Powers took care of Walt -- but good. Despite Roy's concerns that Powers might not be honest, Walt gave him distribution rights for Mickey Mouse. As Roy grew increasingly convinced that Powers wasn't paying them properly, Walt pooh-poohed his big brother's concerns as unnecessary negativism. His own natural optimism -- buoyed by Mickey's instant success -- obscured all signs of trouble. Walt and Roy even saw clear to giving Ub a 20% share in the studio and credit on the cartoons; rewards for his loyalty. The staff grew. The Silly Symphonies were introduced.
 
Waly and Ub Iwerks
Walt and Ub Iwerks: a formidable team in the early days of Mickey Mouse
 
Finally, the bubble burst when Powers tried to blackmail Walt into coming to work for him. The leverage? Powers had hired away Ub Iwerks, convinced that he was the key to Disney's success. Ub likely left out of frustration that though he was a 20% owner, he was still clearly working for the domineering and short-tempered Walt. Though shocked, Walt wouldn't yield. He just moved on without Ub. And although Ub must be acknowledged as an integral force in shaping the look and style of the early Mickey Mouse cartoons, the reality is that Walt's business didn't seem to suffer without him. One change: He would never again give an employee the kind of credit he had given Iwerks. Ub, by contrast, spent the next decade creating forgettable cartoons like Flip the Frog, and then returned to the Disney Studio. As Leonard Maltin writes in "Of Mice and Magic," "The 10 years away from Disney were the least rewarding or productive he spent in the motion picture field. This in no way demeans Iwerks or his talent. It merely underscores the fact that making cartoons was not his goal, but rather a means to an end for him. His ambition -- and great love -- was to conquer technical challenges."
 
As Walt entered his 30s, his fame was growing. With Powers out of the picture, the studio was financially successful for the first time. By the beginning of 1931, Walt had 75 employees -- and the number was growing quickly. But Walt was miserable. He was sleeping less and less and working harder and harder. Nights he would work in the studio, lighting one cigarette after the other. His artists frequently disappointed him. And even though money was pouring in, Walt was almost entirely incapable of estimating costs -- his cartoons were perpetually over budget. The studio's new distributor, Columbia Pictures, might have been sending checks on a regular basis, but its president, Harry Cohn, was not an easy man to work with. According to film director Frank Capra, Cohn "badgered and bulldozed" Walt. In 1931, newspapers reported that Walt went into the Good Samaritan Hospital for an operation on his throat, "caused by strain to the larynx muscles overworked by Disney in making the various squeaks and squeals used for the talkie cartoons." This is a somewhat mysterious episode, in that he never seems to have made reference to that hospital stay. His irritability began to grow alarming. "I got to a point that I couldn't talk on the telephone. I'd begin to cry. . . ."
 
In off moments, he dwelled on other, simpler times. He began animated correspondences with friends and acquaintances from Kansas City and the Red Cross Ambulance Corps. Meanwhile, he had a deep yearning for children -- accentuated when Roy had a son, Roy Edward Disney, in January of 1930. During this time, Lilly suffered two miscarriages. In those days, of course, people didn't talk about miscarriages in the way that they do today. Society didn't understand the kind of deeply felt grief that often attends the loss of a pregnancy. Even Walt was hesitant to acknowledge his feelings. He wrote a cousin in 1931, "I am married and so far all I can boast of is a cute little wife and a dandy chow dog." While he waited for an heir (and even after he had two daughters), nephews, nieces, and children of friends and employees were recipients of a steady supply of toys and games. Marjorie recalled, "Aunt Lilly made me clothes for my dolls, and Uncle Walt gave me skates and scooters and all the exciting things." Herbert's daughter Dorothy remembered that Walt gave her "my first prom dress." A nephew of Lilly's, Bill Papineau, even went to college courtesy of his uncle and aunt. But though Walt made children around him happy, he was descending deeper and deeper into an unfamiliar state of anxiety. In later years, Walt was to say that "in 1931 I had a hell of a breakdown, I went all to pieces." His doctor prescribed a vacation and more exercise.
 
Walt and Lilly went off on a trip they called their "gypsy jaunt." Walt booked passage on a boat to Cuba. He wanted to take a steamer down the Mississippi and pick up the boat in New Orleans, but that didn't work out. They had some time to kill, "so we got on a train and went to Washington, D.C. I stayed there about three days. Walked all around. Saw all the monuments. I was thrilled to death to see all these things. I sat in the parks and fed the pigeons." Then they visited Florida and Cuba and cruised all 5,000 miles back from Havana to Los Angeles. "We had the time of our life," Walt said. "We met a lot of wonderful people going through the canal. It was warm and relaxed." Walt jumped into an exercise program with his usual vigor. He started with wrestling, but that didn't last long. He didn't want to "stay for 10 minutes in somebody's crotch." He boxed for a while, then played golf, rising before dawn so he could get to the studio at opening. Any golfer, knowing Walt's personality, could predict that this would not be his game. He'd get as furious as Donald Duck when his ball rolled past the cup. It was hardly the relaxing sport he was looking for.
 
Walt in polo game
Walt in action during a polo game, sometime in the mid-1930s
 
At last he came to polo. It was a natural for Walt, who would have enjoyed hanging around the horses even if there was no sport attached. From the looks of a variety of photos, he was certainly impressive all rigged up on horseback for a game. According to Bill Cottrell, a longtime staffer (and eventually his brother-in-law, when Cottrell married Lilly's sister Hazel), Walt was a fair amateur. Staffers felt obligated to take up the sport as well. Animators Norm Ferguson, Les Clark, and Dick Lundy joined up, as did the studio attorney, Gunther Lessing. Roy also played. Never inclined to half-measures, Walt engaged Gil Proctor, a polo expert, to teach his team about the sport. According to Bob Thomas' biography of Walt, "Practice started at six in the morning and was completed in time for all of the players to report to the studio by eight. Walt erected a polo cage at the studio; on the lunch hour or during work breaks, the players could sit on a wooden mount and practice hitting the wooden ball."
 
After a while, Walt and Roy became members of the Riviera Club, one of the swankiest polo clubs around. There Walt rode with some of the biggest names in Hollywood -- Spencer Tracy, Will Rogers, and Darryl Zanuck. He and Lilly had always avoided the Hollywood party scene; no matter how successful they got, he and Roy always seemed more like solid midwesterners than Hollywood moguls. But in the world of polo, Walt enjoyed his contacts with local luminaries. The diversion and the exercise may have paid off -- or perhaps Walt's time in the doldrums had simply run its course. In any case, he was back to his old plucky self in 1932. His career was booming. Pluto and Goofy came on the scene. He and Roy got rid of Harry Cohn and Columbia and moved to a happier relationship with United Artists. Under the gifted guidance of Herman "Kay" Kamen, the studio started licensing products, thus bringing in more cash. "Flowers and Trees," the first Technicolor cartoon -- made despite heavy financial risks -- won an Academy Award. "Three Little Pigs" was a smash hit. It was wonderful. It was exciting. But none of it was more important to Walt than Lilly's pregnancy in mid-1933, which appeared to be a healthy one.
 
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