Walt before Mickey

Disney's Early Years, 1919-1928

Timothy S. Susanin

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781626744561

For ten years before the creation of Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney struggled with, failed at, and eventually mastered the art and business of animation. Most biographies of his career begin in 1928, when Steamboat Willie was released. That first Disney Studio cartoon with synchronized sound made its main character--Mickey Mouse--an icon for generations.

But Steamboat Willie was neither Disney's first cartoon nor Mickey Mouse's first appearance. Prior to this groundbreaking achievement, Walt Disney worked in a variety of venues and studios, refining what would become known as the Disney style. In Walt before Mickey: Disney's Early Years, 1919-1928, Timothy Susanin creates a portrait of the artist from age seventeen to the cusp of his international renown.

After serving in the Red Cross in France after World War I, Walt Disney worked for advertising and commercial art in Kansas City. Walt used these experiences to create four studios--Kaycee Studios, Laugh-O-gram Films, Disney Brothers Studio, and Walt Disney Studio. Using company documents, private correspondence between Walt and his brother Roy, contemporary newspaper accounts, and new interviews with Disney's associates, Susanin traces Disney's path. The author shows Disney to be a complicated, resourceful man, especially during his early career. Walt before Mickey, a critical biography of a man at a crucial juncture, provides the "missing decade" that started Walt Disney's career and gave him the skills to become a name known worldwide.

Notes

Introduction

xi During Thanksgiving week Walt Disney: An American Original, Bob Thomas, Disney Editions, New York, 1994 edition, 351–52.

xi executives visited him One of “Walt’s Boys,” Harry Tytle, Airtight Seals Allied Productions, Royal Oak, 1997.

xi his writers prepared Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, Neal Gabler, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2006, 627 (citing memorandum from Spec McClure to Tommie Wilck, December 7, 1966, Walt Disney Archives).

xi a secretary bring Gabler, 628 (citing interview of Tommie Wilck by Bob Thomas, Walt Disney Archives).

xi On Monday, November 21 Thomas (1994 ed.), 351–52.

xi the animation building “The Death of Walt Disney,” Milton Gray, APAtoons, May–June 2001.

xi a new script Thomas (1994 ed.), 351.

xi driven to nearby; screened a rough Gabler, 628 (citing Walt Disney, Richard Hubler, unpublished, 838).

xii admitted to St. Joseph’s “Disney Undergoes Surgery on Lung,” Los Angeles Times, November 23, 1966, 1.

xii X-ray (administered prior “Growing Up Disney,” People, December 21, 1998, 56.

xii tumor “Walt Disney, 65, Dies on Coast; Founded an Empire on a Mouse,” the New York Times, December 16, 1966, 1.

xii his left lung “Disney Gets Clean Bill From Doctors,” Daily Variety, November 23, 1966, 15.

xii Surgeons removed part “Disney Undergoes Surgery . . .”

xii informed Walt’s family “Growing Up Disney.”

xii tumor was cancerous Building A Company: Roy O. Disney And The Creation Of An Entertainment Empire, Bob Thomas, Hyperion, New York, 1998, Thomas (1998), 295.

xii smoked since his Gabler, 626.

xii six months to “Growing Up Disney.”

Prologue

3 “I was 18; “first job was; “started working with “Mickey Mouse—Inspiration from Mouse in K.C. studio,” Lowell Lawrance, Kansas City Journal-Post, September 8, 1935.

3 seventeen years old Thomas (1994 ed.), 24.

3 had returned to Inside the Dream: The Personal Story of Walt Disney, Katherine and Richard Greene, Disney Editions, New York, 2001, 20.

3 Friday, October 10 Walt left Marseille, France, on the SS Canada on Thursday, September 4, 1919, and arrived in New York on Friday, October 10. Ancestry.com, New York Passenger Lists, 1820–1957.

3 after working as The Greenes (2001), 20.

3 “truly a Missourian Walt Disney’s Missouri, Brian Burnes, Robert W. Butler, and Dan Viets, Kansas City Star Books, Kansas City, 2002, vii.

3 from the ages The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney, Michael Barrier, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2007, 17, 20–21. The Story of Walt Disney, Diane Disney Miller, as told to Pete Martin, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1956, 19. The material in this book was given to Pete Martin by Walt. See email from Diane Disney Miller to T. Susanin, January 19, 2010. In her introduction to an edition of this book reissued by Disney Editions in 2005 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Disneyland, Mrs. Miller wrote, “I must announce that I did not write this book. . . .[T]he book was wholly written by Mr. Martin[.]”

3 “[W]as I going “Father Goose,” Time, December 27, 1954, electronic version.

3 “decided on art “Walt Disney’s Success Laid to Ability to Think as Child Does,” Garrett D. Byrnes, the Evening Bulletin, Providence, December 27, 1935, 24.

3 After being turned Thomas (1998), 39.

3 twenty-six Thomas (1998), 13. Roy was born on June 24, 1893, and was eight and one-half years older than Walt.

3 a Navy veteran Thomas (1998), 35, 38.

3 was a clerk 1919 Kansas City, Missouri City Directory, Gate City Directory Company, Kansas City, 1919, 979.

3 Bank in downtown Thomas (1998), 39.

3 The bank, a; was located towards Burnes, Butler, and Viets, 14, 73.

3 “I have two Miller, 59; Gabler, 44 (citing interview of Walt Disney by Pete Martin, Reel 5, 43–44).

3 Louis A. Pesmen Pesmen did not have a middle name, but used the middle initial “A” because he thought LAP made a nice monogram. Email from Sandra Pesmen to T. Susanin, May 16, 2008.

3 twenty-seven, was born Draft card of Louis A. Pesmen, Ancestry.com, World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917–1918.

3 came to the United Email from Sonny Jaben to T. Susanin, April 9, 2008.

3 His family settled Draft card of Louis Pesmen.

3 where he returned; Like his father Email from Sonny Jaben to T. Susanin, April 9, 2008.

3 worked elsewhere in; Pesmen had light Draft card of Louis Pesmen.

3 “a man of Email from Sonny Jaben to T. Susanin, April 9, 2008.

3 “meticulously groomed Email from Sandra Pesmen to T. Susanin, April 14, 2008.

4 married for several Louis Pesmen and Reba Polansky Application for License to Marry, June 3, 1919, Ancestry.com, Missouri Marriage Records, 1805–2002.

4 was a partner; “Pesmen-Rubin Commercial untitled article by Louis A. Pesmen, 1971. According to...