The Queens of Animation

by Nathalia Holt

  In a small apartment in Queens, New York, Chester Carlson was also beginning to give up hope. Carlson had graduated with a degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1930, but in the wake of the Great Depression he was unable to find work in his field. After applying to eighty-two different companies, he finally took a job at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City. The low-paying job soon grew dull, so he transferred to the company’s patent office, where, even if he couldn’t create inventions, he could at least protect them. He found working with the attorneys in the office more tiresome than he anticipated, however, primarily because of the paperwork involved. Drawings of each invention had to be copied by hand several times in order to correctly file the patent. With his poor eyesight and rheumatoid arthritis, Carlson spent much of his time there in misery. He began to dream of a machine that would be able to copy a document with the push of a button.

  The fantasy was not his alone. A Hungarian physicist named Pál Selényi was publishing papers on the nature of light and performing experiments to electrostatically attract ink to an insulated surface. Inspired by Selényi’s published studies, Carlson began playing with the techniques in his kitchen, occasionally starting fires in the Astoria, Queens, apartment he shared with his wife and mother-in-law.

  On October 22, 1938, Carlson had his first success. Along with another physicist, the Austrian refugee Otto Kornei, he wrote in ink the date and his location on a glass microscope slide: 10.-22.-38 Astoria. He rubbed a handkerchief on a sulfur-coated zinc plate in order to build up an electrostatic charge, just as a child might rub a balloon on her head to build up static electricity. He quickly laid the glass slide atop the zinc plate and shone a bright light on it for five seconds, then removed the slide and sprinkled, as if it were fairy dust, lycopodium powder on the plate. When he blew off the loose powder, what he had written remained clearly visible: 10.-22.-38 Astoria.

  Carlson and Kornei improved their technique, and Carlson used his expertise in the area to quickly file a patent on the process. He assumed that the next step, finding a business partner with money to invest, would be simple. This was not the case. By 1942, he had been rejected by dozens of companies, including IBM, GE, and RCA. Carlson began to question whether electrophotography would ever be valued by the business world. He couldn’t know it at the time, but the invention he lamented ever finding a home for would eventually trigger a revolution at the Walt Disney Studios.

  Chapter 9

  Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

  In the cool night air of Mexico City on December 9, 1942, Mary watched children gather in front of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They formed a procession, some of them carrying pictures of Joseph, Mary, and the angel Gabriel, others holding candles, their small hands cupped around the naked flames to protect them from the wind. They walked through the streets slowly, their voices echoing off the buildings as they sang “Canto Para Pedir Posada,” the sweet melody that marks the Mexican Christmas tradition of Las Posadas. The song is a conversation between Joseph and the innkeepers of Bethlehem in which he pleads for lodging for himself and the pregnant Mary, about to give birth. During Las Posadas, the children go from house to house asking for shelter. Voices inside sing in response, at first saying there is no room. Finally, at a designated house, the door is opened to welcome them and the final verse is sung by everyone together. Inside the house, a party is held, the children letting out happy shouts as they swing at a piñata.

  Mary was not religious but she felt incredibly moved by the beauty of the tradition. As she sketched the scene, she experienced a breakthrough moment in her artistic development. She had drawn a few young people during her travels in South America, sketching faces that conveyed sweetness and innocence. The many children she drew in Mexico were similar in their stylized nature but with rounder cheeks and more expressive faces. Mary brought a level of empathy to the pieces that underscored her connection to the scene, the bright colors reflecting the participants’ joy as they walked through the streets. Mary’s depiction of children in her artwork would never be the same.

  Walt was struck by her work. “You know about colors I have never heard of,” he told her. While Mary was thrilled at the praise, she could feel the jealousy of her male coworkers, who bristled at the attention Walt gave her. In their displeasure, they called her “Marijuana Blair,” a nickname that mocked her eccentric color choices.

  But Walt’s admiration was lasting and sincere. Very few pieces of artwork by studio employees were displayed at his home, but Walt loved Mary’s watercolors so much that two of her paintings of Peruvian children, both concept drawings for Saludos Amigos, hung in the Disney house in Los Angeles. It wasn’t solely her art that made an impression. Diane and Sharon, Walt’s daughters, regarded Mary herself with awe and admiration.

  Mary left her twenties the way a snake sheds its skin—with a shiny new sense of self. She was thirty-two in 1943 and had attained confidence and focus, and not only artistically. A natural sophistication emerged in the way she looked, acted, and dressed. She designed and sewed her own clothing, creating a unique style. Her bold wardrobe included capes, scarves, neckties, and unusual hats. She played with tailoring, often using the lines found in men’s clothing and wearing jackets and pants. With her high cheekbones, short bangs, French perfume, and quiet, worldly demeanor, she made an impression not only on Walt’s young daughters but on almost everyone else who met her.

  By 1943 Mary’s life had become a blur of airfields, suitcases, and the melodic tones of the Spanish language. After traveling to South America in 1941 to prepare for Saludos Amigos and then to Mexico with Walt and a few other artists in 1942 for material for The Three Caballeros, she was sent to Cuba to do some work for a third planned feature, tentatively called Cuban Carnival. Cuban diplomats, citing the vast numbers of American tourists to their shores in the 1940s, were disappointed to have been left out of Saludos Amigos and had requested an animated celebration of their culture.

  Mary got off the plane in Havana and, accustomed as she was to the dry climate of Southern California, was immediately struck by the humidity. She was traveling with a small cadre of artists and without Walt, so unlike the expedition to South America, where Walt’s presence lent a formal air to events and appearances, she now had the freedom to sketch and write, meticulously documenting the culture she was immersing herself in.

  Mary Blair (center) making new friends in Cuba in 1943 (Courtesy the estate of Mary Blair)

  Relishing the independence, she let her own inclinations and instincts guide her. She sketched furiously over the course of five weeks as she traveled the country, visiting cigar factories, strolling through fields of sugarcane, and twirling in her heels in dance halls.

  Walt had given her the freedom to work as a concept artist, creating the look and feel of the films she designed. Her travels were an essential part of this process, inspiring her first rough outlines for upcoming features. A story artist was responsible for creating storyboards and writing scripts, but her work was often more like a cinematographer’s—she captured specific scenes and chose a color palette that communicated the emotion the scene should have. The roles she played were frequently diverse; in addition to concept art, she created background art for some films, and for others she served as an art director, which she described as “an idea-creating position,” adding “you either have it or you don’t.”

  Mary and the story department staff worked closely together to come up with ideas for a new film. As Mary was performing her magic on the concept art, the story department would build a storyboard and then begin working on the script. Mary’s art acted as a foundation, creating a look for the film, the set, and the characters that the animators could build from. However, the ideas coming from the story department were a mere trickle compared to the mighty river that had once flowed from the group. When Mary was home from her travels, she and Retta would discuss their frustrations at the limited prospects before them, martinis in th
eir hands.

  In 1943, with Victory Through Air Power nearly complete and training videos for the military in constant production, there was little to inspire Retta, Sylvia, and the group of artists who remained in the studio. Retta was working on the shorts Tuberculosis, Cleanliness Brings Health, Infant Care and Feeding, and Hookworm, while Sylvia was shaping The Story of Menstruation. Yet even with their meager budgets and limited subject matter, both women managed to bring exceptional artistry to their work.

  Sylvia was zealous about describing to young women the scientific nature of hormones and their impact on the growing female body, information accompanied by anatomically accurate animation. In many ways the piece was radical. Talk of menstruation in the 1940s was taboo, and frank discussions of female human biology were rare. Misconceptions surrounding menstruation lingered from past generations; many women referred to their periods as “the curse” and believed themselves to be unclean and unable to participate in normal activity during it.

  Sylvia’s piece was being produced at a time of innovation in feminine-hygiene products. After World War I, nurses realized that the cellulose bandages they had used on soldiers were more absorbent than cotton and began making menstruation pads from the material. By the 1940s the pads were widely available and sold, along with sanitary belts to hold the material in place, by companies like Kotex and Modess.

  Although tampons in one form or another had existed for centuries, with the earliest use documented among Egyptian women, the product wasn’t commercially available in the United States until 1933. A doctor named Earle Haas applied for a patent on November 19, 1931, for his “catamenial device,” a piece of compressed cotton that could be inserted into the vagina using two pieces of telescoping cardboard. After failing to get manufacturers interested in the product, he sold the patent to a woman named Gertrude Tendrich, who formed the Tampax Sales Corporation. She was its first president and began to sell the product in retail stores as an “invisible sanitary napkin.” As the United States entered World War II, the popularity of tampons grew, since they were marketed to those with “active” jobs in the war effort.

  In the short film, Sylvia didn’t shy away from frankly discussing female anatomy, preferring candor to conventional modesty. The short would be shown in high schools throughout the 1940s and 1950s, and for many young women, it was their introduction to reproductive biology.

  Although these projects offered a sense of purpose, Sylvia was happy to leave them behind when Walt told her the next feature she would be working on would be musical in nature. Her face lit up with delight at the prospect of allowing music to once again influence her work. She was working with fellow writer José Rodriguez on a new package film called The History of Music. The two had previously collaborated on Victory Through Air Power. The History of Music could not have been more different. Sylvia drew a wise owl to explain the evolution of musical instruments and the technical aspects of their design that created a “toot, whistle, plunk, and boom.” While she happily filled her studio space once again with symphonies, another new feature film was finally emerging from old storyboards.

  Story development at Walt Disney Studios was a competitive sport. Writing was just the beginning of the process. For the story to thrive and enter production, the writer needed to be a strong advocate for his or her work, someone who could be thoroughly persuasive during story meetings. That description did not often apply to Bianca, so her projects made it to the screen only after torturous effort. Bianca’s story treatment for Cinderella, written in 1940 and accompanied by her drawings, at first seemed to be just another failed proposal. Yet with the dearth of new ideas being generated by the diminished department, Bianca’s take on the classic tale gleamed like a glass slipper left on a dark staircase. Walt brushed the dust off the file and began rereading her work.

  Bianca’s adaptation captured the essence of the age-old fairy tale, which crosses cultures and traditions. Variations on the story have been found in the literature of ancient Greece, Tang-dynasty China, and seventeenth-century Italy, and there are more than five hundred European versions. “Cendrillon,” published in French writer Charles Perrault’s Tales of Mother Goose in 1697, would grow in popularity thanks to his additions of a fairy godmother, a pumpkin that turns into a carriage, and a glass slipper. Some later adaptations would intensify the cruelty in the plot. The Brothers Grimm version, called “Aschenputtel,” published in 1812, had the stepsisters cut off parts of their own feet in order to fit into the lost slipper, filling the shoe with blood. Even at the happy ending, when Cinderella is marrying her prince, birds swoop down to peck out the eyes of the cruel stepsisters, leaving them forever blinded.

  It is unsurprising that Bianca preferred to adapt the less disturbing French version when writing her script. While the simple story required little finesse, there were still changes Bianca felt would improve the film. Given the studio’s adeptness at animating animals, Bianca decided to create a large supporting cast of helpful creatures. Both the animals and their relationships with the central character offered a fresh take on the tale. Mice in the original stories were merely pests caught in traps, but in Bianca’s script, the mice are Cinderella’s friends and a key plot device.

  At the end of Perrault’s story, after the stepsisters fail to fit their feet into the glass slipper, Cinderella shows up and says simply, “Let me see if it will not fit me.” Feeling the need to bring tension to the scene, Bianca had the wicked stepmother lock Cinderella in a cellar from which she cannot escape; her pet mouse Dusty must take the glass slipper in his paws and lead the king’s men to the dark prison. Bianca’s script ends not with a wedding but with the image of Dusty now living in a gem-encrusted mouse hole.

  Bianca brought other animal characters to the script as well, including a pet turtle named Clarissa and a cruel cat named Bon Bob that belonged to the stepsisters. With its cast of animal characters, Bianca’s screen adaptation of Cinderella was an ideal fit for the studio. The timing, however, was not perfect. It was 1943, and few people were interested in lighthearted princess stories. Money was still tight, as Walt and Roy were able to meet their current expenses but had been unable to pay down their debt. Nonetheless, Walt threw caution to the wind, anticipating better days ahead, and convinced the bankers to give the project a budget of one million dollars. He then assigned two of his best story artists, Joe Grant and Dick Huemer, to supervise work on the feature. The men were not excited about their assignment. They did not share Walt’s love of fairy tales and preferred working on an original story of their own. “I never liked pictures where you knew how it was going to end,” Grant complained of the project. Reluctantly, they resurrected the words and drawings from Bianca’s last days in the story department.

  Progress on Cinderella was soon interrupted by another feature. In early 1944, Walt decided that Song of the South would be the studio’s next big project. The film was based on Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, published in 1880.

  The book is a collection of African American oral folklore supposedly told to Harris. In 1862 he began working outside the small town of Eatonton, Georgia, as a typesetter’s apprentice for a local newspaper. Describing himself as “forlorn and friendless,” the fourteen-year-old Harris started spending his free time among the slaves working on the nearby Turnwold plantation, particularly enjoying the compelling stories told by a man named Owen Terrell.

  The Civil War ended in 1865, but no one would have known it from observing the cotton fields surrounding the Turnwold plantation. In 1865, President Andrew Johnson reverted property to its prewar owners and granted governmental freedom to southern states. Although four million slaves were now free under the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution, state governments in the South enacted “black codes” that restricted the movement of African Americans and ensured their exploitation as a labor force. At the plantation, Harris saw little change. African Americans performed the same work, lived in the same cabins, and
told many of the same stories they had under slavery.

  Harris began writing down the tales of Brer Rabbit, a hero who frequently outthought his foes Brer Fox and Brer Bear. The stories can be traced back to the Akan folk traditions of West Africa, whose enslaved people carried the tales throughout the Americas to symbolize how a small creature, by virtue of his intelligence, can triumph over stronger, larger animals. In Harris’s collection, Uncle Remus, a former slave, tells the stories nightly to a young white boy visiting his grandmother’s plantation. Harris portrays Uncle Remus as having “nothing but pleasant memories of the discipline of slavery.” For years after, children and adults alike would assume Joel Chandler Harris was a black man, someone like Uncle Remus, when in reality he was more akin to the white boy in the book. By publishing these stories, Harris not only usurped the culture of African oral folklore but also whitewashed the history of slavery in the United States.

  In spite of these offenses, the book was incredibly popular at the turn of the twentieth century, quickly making its way into children’s libraries across the country, including Walt Disney’s. With fond childhood memories of the stories, he purchased the rights to the book in 1939 and assigned a few members of his story department to work on the adaptation. With so much to distract the studio at the time, little attention was paid to the book, and it wasn’t until five years later that Walt’s interest in the project was rekindled. Part of its attraction was that the film could now benefit from the optical printer. With hand-drawn animation still unbearably expensive, combining it with live action and thus saving money while also furthering a new technology was appealing. But unlike in 1939, there was no longer a large staff of writers to let loose on it, so Walt hired Dalton Reymond, a writer and professor at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, to begin the adaptation.