"You Can't Sue God"

From Kirk Douglas' 1988 autobiography The Ragman's Son:  "I was shocked at Disney's audacity in exploiting my children."

What was the star of Disney's own 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea so upset about?  So much so that he carried a grudge for three decades?

Sometime in early 1956, Kirk Douglas and his two young sons, Joel and Michael, spent a Saturday afternoon at Walt Disney's Holmby Hills estate.  The highlight of the visit for Kirk and his kids was the opportunity to ride on the Carolwood Pacific, Walt's 1/8 scale model railroad.  Shortly thereafter, film footage of the older Douglas sitting atop a miniature engine and navigating a trainload of kids around Walt's backyard appeared on an episode of the Disneyland television program.  The show in question, Where Do the Stories Come From, demonstrated how the inspiration for the 1951 Donald Duck cartoon Out of Scale came from the model railroading hobbies of Walt and two of his animators, Ollie Johnston and Ward Kimball.  The episode first aired on April 4, 1956.

Douglas was surprised and distinctly irritated by the footage.  "I wrote him a letter saying that I would prefer that he never use film of my kids and me on a commercial program," he revealed in The Ragman's Son.  He noted that he then received a letter of apology in return.

 

But when Where Do the Stories Come From was rerun just two months later on June 6, 1956, the footage in question was still included in the program.  Douglas was outraged.  On the advice of his lawyer, he initiated a lawsuit that named Walt, the Disney Studios, the ABC television network and the program's sponsors among the defendants.  Douglas insisted it was a matter of principle and if he won, any monetary awards would be donated to charity.

But according to Douglas in his autobiography, just before the matter went to trial he had misgivings.  "I thought, what am I doing?  There are some people in our profession –Bob Hope, Walt Disney-who can do no wrong."  Over the objections of his lawyer, he dropped the suit.  "I doubt if I could have gotten anywhere with it.  You can't sue God."

Douglas' recollections, while apparently noble on the surface, are seemingly at odds with the public record from the summer of 1956.  In The Ragman's Son, he portrays himself as the offended parent, furious over the seeming exploitation of his children.  Yet, upon examining the film footage in question, the Douglas sons are at no point either identified or mentioned.  Numerous children are shown riding the train, but there is no direct correlation between any of them and Kirk Douglas, at least not to the public at large to which Joel and Michael would certainly have been unrecognizable.

Douglas' exploitation charge becomes especially curious when examining newspaper accounts of the affair from the summer of 1956.   He sued for $400,000 in damages and an additional $15,000 for compensation for the "work" he did in the filmed footage.  He claimed the matter was an invasion of privacy, but according to multiple reports, emphasized more that ". . . the showings damaged his reputation and earning power, because his status and income potential are based on the kind and number of appearances he chooses to make and the payment he gets for these performances."  It appears that what really upset the actor was that he wasn't paid for the appearance.

Not so coincidentally, a couple weeks after the charges were filed, Douglas expounded on how television had the means to undermine his career and livelihood.  In a newspaper column he himself penned, he stated, "I feel if people can twist a knob and see me in their living rooms every week, they will not leave the house to pay to see me in a film."

In fairness, Walt Disney is not without blame in the matter.  The studio agreed not to use the footage in subsequent airings of Where Do the Stories Come From and whether by error or design, failed to live up to that accord.  In response to the suit, Walt stated publicly that, "The entire appearance of Mr. Douglas on television was for 26 seconds and it is inconceivable that a man who has appeared so extensively in motion pictures, magazines and television could be damaged on a television screen in that amount of time."  But had the studio excised the footage as promised, the entire matter would have been over before it started.

Long Ago Magic Along 31st Street in Kansas City - Revisited

Editor's Note:  Restoration efforts continue on the McConahy Building in Kansas City.  Tremendous progress has been made in the eighteen years since I created this post detailing Walt's history in Kansas City.  The grass roots efforts of Thank You, Walt Disney continue, as documented by their newsletters that are well worth checking out.  Needless to say, donations are happily and gratefully accepted.  Consider adding your support to this very worthy cause.

Revisiting this post brought back some wonderful memories, most especially that it came to the attention of Diane Disney Miller, who shared the following reminiscence: 

"We have a bit of wonderful film, shot by my dad, of the entire Disney family on what appears to be the screened porch of that home on Belfontaine. He pans around the room, and we see little Dorothy Disney with her parents, Flora perched on the arm of Elias' chair, laughing and talking animatedly. When I saw this film, not too many years ago, I understood why my dad always said 'My mother was a beautiful woman.'"

A short time back, 2719 Hyperion reader Steve Pierson shared with me photographs he had taken on a recent visit to Kansas City, Missouri. Walt Disney lived in that Midwestern city during his youth, and it was there as a young man he established his first animation studio. Steve sought out some of the landmarks associated with this period of early Disney history, seeking to identify places such as Walt's childhood home and the locations of the early Laugh-O-Grams Studios. Steve then very generously gave me permission to use the pictures in a post detailing the Kansas City of Walt Disney's formative years.

What began as the simple task of putting together a post showcasing Steve's efforts, quickly grew into a geographical and historical research vignette encompassing vintage photos, satellite imagery and resources such as The Animated Man by Michael Barrier and Walt in Wonderland by Russell Merritt and J. B. Kaufman. Having never been to Kansas City, I wanted to be able to better understand Walt's time there in a geographical context. I was also curious to discover just how much of Walt Disney's Kansas City had survived into the 21st century.

Michael Barrier visited Kansas City a few years back and noted, "Walt Disney's old neighborhood is so badly blighted—and so radically different from what he knew—that making that imaginative leap back to 1922 is, I'm afraid, very difficult." Barrier's observation is sadly very accurate. But despite the urban decay of the area, vestiges of Walt's life there do remain. And out of one of those vestiges, a project of both historical commemoration and neighborhood renewal may hopefully be realized some time in the near future.

Walt Disney arrived with his family in Kansas City in the spring of 1911. Their first residence was a rented house at 2706 East 31st Street, in a neighborhood a few miles southeast of downtown. For the next twelve years, the very significant events of Walt's life would transpire within a twenty-block stretch of that particular boulevard.

31st Street would form the southern border of Kansas City Star delivery route that Elias Disney would purchase that following summer. The area of route stretched north to 27th Street and was bordered on the west by Prospect Avenue and on the east by Indiana Avenue. Walt, his brother Roy, and Elias would deliver morning and Sunday newspapers to over seven hundred customers. In September of 1911, Walt enrolled at the nearby Benton Grammer School. He was required to repeat the second grade despite having completed that level while still living in Marceline. Eleven years later, he would audition students from that school for roles in Tommy Tucker's Tooth, an educational film commissioned by a local dentist. Benton student Jack Records, then eleven years old, won the part of Jimmie Jones. The school closed in 2002 and subsequently became the DA Holmes Apartments.

Two blocks away from the Benton Grammer School, Walt and a childhood friend set up a pop stand at the corner 31st and Montgall during the summer of 1912. According to the friend, "It ran about three weeks and we drank up all the profits."

No trace remains of the Disney family's original Kansas City residence on 31st Street. In the fall of 1914, Elias Disney purchased a small house a few blocks east at 3028 Bellefontaine Street just off 31st Street. That home would remain in the Disney family until 1921, when Walt's oldest brother Herbert moved his family to Portland, Oregon. Elias and Flora Disney followed their son west a few months later. The house on Bellefontaine remains to this day, as does the garage that Elias Disney built sometime in 1920. It was in this garage that Walt produced the Newman Laugh-O-Grams and later Little Red Riding Hood, the first independent Laugh-O-Gram cartoon.

When the house and garage at Bellefontaine became unavailable, Walt took to renting rooms and set up studios in a few different locations in an area surrounding the intersection of 31st Street and Troost Avenue, about 20 blocks west of his childhood neighborhood. A now somewhat iconic design that graced an envelope shows the 3028 Bellefontaine address scratched out and replaced with a handwritten "3241 Troost," undoubtedly the first of those locations.

In early 1920, Walt took a job with the Kansas City Slide Company that was located at 1015 Central Street. The job paid forty dollars a week. Later that year, that company moved to a location on Charlotte Street and became the Kansas City Film Ad Company. The building on Central Street still survives in the heart of downtown Kansas City. 2249-51 Charlotte Street has since become the location of the Truman Medical Center and Children's Mercy Hospital.

In May of 1922, Walt incorporated Laugh-O-Grams Films and set up the new studio on the upper floor of the McConahy Building located at 1127 East 31st Street. The McConahy Building survives still, and has become the focus of a grass roots restoration and urban renewal effort, the details of which can be found at the website Thank You Walt Disney. Walt often took his meals at the Forest Inn Cafe on the first floor of the building, the restaurants owners frequently extending him much needed credit. It was at this location that Walt and his staff produced the Laugh-O-Grams series as well as Tommy Tuckers Tooth and the "Song-O-Reel" Martha, a live action sing-along. The Studio was just beginning production of the first Alice comedy, Alice's Wonderland in June of 1923, when a lack of rent money forced them from the building.


Some sources assert that the studio moved to the nearby Wirthman Building at the corner of 31st Street and Troost. That building was also home to the large and elaborate Isis Theater, whose resident organist was Carl Stalling. Stalling's musical talents would be employed notably and famously by Warner Brothers in Hollywood some years later. But according to Michael Barrier in The Animated Man, it is likely that Walt returned to one of his former locations at 3239 Troost Avenue. It would have been there that the studio wrapped up production on Alice's Wonderland, and Walt Disney and Laugh-O-Grams Films essentially went broke. Shortly thereafter, Walt headed for Hollywood, while former colleagues Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising and Max Maxwell launched their own studio within the walls of the Wirthman Building. Arabian Nights Cartoons would purchase and employ many of the assets and equipment of the former Laugh-O-Grams studio.

The Wirthman Building and the Isis Theater went on to experience tragedy and adversity over the next five decades. The theater survived fires in 1928, 1939 and 1954. In March of 1970, the Isis became the center of racial unrest and rioting, and closed permanently shortly thereafter. Other tenants continued to occupy the Wirthman Building but it was ultimately demolished in 1997. A mural by Kansas City artist Alexander Austin was unveiled on the wall of an adjacent building in 2006, celebrating the history of Troost Avenue. Images of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse are depicted on the design.

The True Life Winston Hibler

While he certainly has one of the most recognizable voices in the history of Disney entertainment, Winston Hibler has ironically remained one of the more quiet giants behind so many studio success stories and productions both animated and live action. Most famous as the narrator of the True-Life Adventure films, Hibler’s creative efforts however, extended far beyond the award-winning nature documentaries that were the hallmark of his more than thirty-year career with the Disney Studios.

A Pennsylvania native who arrived in Hollywood in the early 1930s to pursue an acting career in motion pictures, Hibler ironically found work with Disney in 1942 behind the cameras. He began his studio career as a camera operator, but quickly became a technical director on many of the government-commissioned training films being produced for the U.S. military.

Hibler’s first entertainment-based endeavor was writing the Johnny Appleseed sequence from the 1948 package feature Melody Time. One of the most underrated gems of Disney animation, Johnny Appleseed was an auspicious debut that Walt Disney himself took notice of. Hibler quickly found himself fast-tracked into feature animation, providing story content for films such as The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty.

But paralleling his contributions to the animation department was his involvement in a series of films that would ultimately become his legacy at Disney for work both as a performer and as a writer. While the True-Life Adventures literally pioneered the nature documentary genre and collected countless awards and accolades, decades later it seems that it is Hibler’s gentle, storyteller-based narrations that are best remembered by a generation of baby boomers and their parents. And it was a job Hibler never intended to do.

When preparing Seal Island, the first in the True-Life Adventure series, Hibler recorded a test track to check for story continuity. According to Hibler’s family, Walt previewed Seal Island for his wife Lillian using Hibler’s “scratch track”. When Lillian later viewed a cut sans-Hib, she pointedly asked Walt what happened to the first guy. Hibler subsequently voiced the final theatrical cut and went on to narrate all the remaining True-Life Adventure films, as well as the People and Places travelogues and numerous episodes of the Disney television program. With the exception of Walt himself, his is likely the most famous non-character voice in the history of the studio.

But the brunt of Hibler’s creative energies on the True-Life films was channeled behind the cameras. While starting as a writer, his subsequent experience allowed him to grow a career that came to encompass producing and directing credits as well. He was the force behind the vast majority of the live-action animal-themed episodes on the Wonderful World of Disney during the 1960s and 1970s, and the likes of Charlie the Lonesome Cougar, Lefty the Dingaling Lynx, and Ida the Offbeat Eagle became staples of Sunday evening entertainment.

Impressively, at the same time Hibler was also largely involved in the studio’s live action feature slate as well. Producer credits appear on such films as Those Calloways, The Ugly Dachshund, Follow Me Boys! and The Island at the Top of the World. He was working on early concepts for what would ultimately become The Black Hole when he passed away in 1976.

Hibler’s talents turned up in other places as well. He contributed lyrics to songs such as "Following the Leader" from Peter Pan and "I Wonder" from Sleeping Beauty. But what is likely one of his most famous and widely heard (and for the most part uncredited) works was this notable speech written for Walt in 1955:

“To all who come to this happy place – welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America, with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.”

While in the past score of years, people such as Marc Davis, Mary Blair, John Hench, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston and numerous other studio and Imagineering legends have rightly and prominently been given recognition that was long overdue, Winston Hibler’s legacy of contributions seems to still remain on the periphery of Disney history. While his lack of extensive animation and theme park notoriety has likely kept his profile lower than that of many of his contemporaries, he was certainly a cornerstone of the Disney Studio for many, many years. His creative impact extends far beyond the True-Life Adventure narrations he became most noted for.

Images © Walt Disney Company

From the Jungle Cruise queue area at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom.

Caxanga!

"Down in Brazil there's a sing-song game they play,
When you hear this tune it haunts you night and day.

Just play it once and I'm sure that you will find,
This quaint melody will linger in your mind."

Buried within the depths of Disney historical obscurity is a hidden gem known as Caxanga. It is one of my very favorite Disney cartoons. But among the likes of The Band Concert, In the Bag, Who Killed Cock Robin or the many others that occupy the very subjective halls of Jeff Pepper-determined fame, Caxanga has one very unique distinction. It was a production that was never completed, and hence, has never graced a movie screen.

Alternately called A Brazilian Symphony, Caxanga was one of many concepts that emerged from the early 1941 Latin American junket by Disney Studio personnel that ultimately gave birth to Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros and a number other similarly themed film sequences and cartoon shorts. The creative roots for Caxanga were documented in the film South of the Border with Disney, released in 1942.

South of the Border with Disney was a thirty minute film released in late 1942, that collected footage Walt Disney, artist Lee Blair and production assistant Larry Lanburgh took with 16mm cameras on that 1941 research trip-goodwill tour of Latin American countries. It predated the releases of any and all efforts it would ultimately inspire, primarily Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. The matchbox game, like other concepts showcased in the film, were then just ideas and notions of the potential entertainment to come.

Footage from the film shows production supervisor Norm Ferguson, story man Bill Cottrell, technical director Jack Cutting and artist Mary Blair demonstrating the matchbox game. An off-screen narrator explains--

"And here's an old Brazilian game called Caxanga. They say the Indians played it centuries ago. It was played with shells originally, but today they use matchboxes. The object is to go through this passing routine without missing. Here again, rhythm plays an important part. First you sing the verse, then hum it, then play to the tempo in silence."

The next scene shows an artist drawing a number of story sketches, suggesting a future cartoon or sequence of Donald Duck playing the game.

Attempts were made to incorporate caxanga into ideas that were being considered. At various points of development, the game had been in story plans for "Aquarela Do Brasil," a sequence ultimately completed for Saludos Amigos; "Carnival Carioca," a unrealized vignette that followed Jose Carioca and Donald Duck visiting the carnival in Rio; and an early concept for "Blame It on the Samba" that was to have featured Carmen Miranda. Storyboards for the proposed sequence featured Jose and Donald visiting Miranda during a nightclub performance of the title song. The two then reminisce of an earlier visit to Rio on the Night of San Juan, where Donald had become infatuated with a Miranda-styled lady parrot. She, Donald and Jose had then played the matchbox game for a few moments. "Blame It on the Samba" later evolved into a segment in Melody Time, in a more abbreviated and distinctly different form, due mainly to the unavailability of Miranda caused by contractual difficulties.
The game later became the centerpiece of two separate proposed cartoon shorts. The first borrowed elements from the aforementioned "Blame It on the Samba." It featured Donald and Jose out for a night on the town in Rio. Donald falls for a cute duck, this time a caricature of Aurora Miranda, who would be showcased in The Three Caballeros. Donald and Jose play a game of caxanga with the stakes being a date with Aurora.

The second concept progressed to the beginnings of pencil animation with some recorded music and dialog. In 1995, a reconstruction of the short was included on the laser disc set Exclusive Archive Collection Three Caballeros-Saludos Amigos. Despite its non-animated, rough draft nature, it is in many ways a wonder, and an entertaining indication of "what might have been." As I said, it is one of my favorite Disney cartoons, despite its unfinished status.

The short opens with Donald Duck, Jose Carioca and interestingly enough, Goofy, seated around a table on a rooftop patio, playing the matchbox game. The setting is Rio as reflected by the view from the nearby balcony; it was no doubt based on a similar panorama of Sugarloaf Mountain enjoyed by Disney artists while staying in Rio de Janeiro. The details of a photo featuring Lee and Mary Blair that appeared in the book The Art and Flair of Mary Blair, bear a clear resemblance to the crude but still distinct scenery and location depicted in the Caxanga storyboard sketches.

Donald is quickly exasperated by both a clever gag involving on-screen subtitles and the furious pace of the tabletop game. The short then quickly transitions more into a clear musical vignette as Donald carries the melody of the aforementioned catchy tune with him into sleep and dreams. As Donald lies in his bed, water faucets, a clock, window shutters, a chandelier and even the lights of the city all begin to sound off in tempo to the melody. The storyboard sketches exhibit a pulsing, wacky dreamscape not far removed from the Pink Elephants sequence in Dumbo, but reflecting visual styles successfully executed in both Saludos Amigos and Three Caballeros. Sheep of the counting nature transform into matchboxes; Donald's bed becomes one with the game; oversize matchboxes morph into versions of Donald, Jose and Goofy who then substitute Donald for the matchbox in play. In on especially creative sequence, Donald precariously scampers across the tips of igniting matchsticks. Upon attempting to balance on the final one, his form goes into silhouette and then morphs into a crowing rooster, announcing the dawn and a hopeful respite from both the music and its inspired torment.

It's interesting to speculate as to where the creative process might have ultimately taken Caxanga. Based on the reconstruction, its clever and entertaining conceptualizations certainly had the potential to make it a vibrant, imaginative addition to Disney's Latin American canon.

Images and Video © Walt Disney Company

Originally published on 2719 Hyperion February 2, 2008

Happy Anniversary, Mr. Saunders

This month marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Disney incarnation of A. A. Milne's beloved character, Winnie the Pooh.  The animated short subject Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree premiered in theaters on February 4, 1966.  From humble beginnings, an IP empire was born.  It was the only Disney-produced Winnie the Pooh film released in Walt's lifetime.

Surprisingly, unless you have an old school VHS machine or a laserdisc player, you cannot view Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree in its original form.  In 1977, it was absorbed with Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too into the feature length The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.  After VHS and laserdisc releases, those short subjects were essentially retired in favor of the longer compilation.

Walt Disney's Los Angeles: Los Feliz 2015

We traveled to the Los Feliz neighborhood in Los Angeles as part of our recent Californy er Bust! road trip.  I wanted to visit some of the locations showcased in our previous articles Walt Disney's Los Angeles 1923-1931, originally produced and posted here in 2010.  We recently reprinted the series as a single article to coincide with our new explorations of that area. Our first stop, of course, was 2719 Hyperion Avenue, the location of Disney's first major studio complex and our namesake.  The historical marker there is getting a bit weather-worn and shows some signs of vandalism, but it continues to stand as the only reminder of the location's historical significance.

The Gelson's Market grocery store continues to encompass the area where the studio once stood. Just a few blocks away from 2719 Hyperion are the former homes of Disney Brothers at the intersection of St. George and Lyric Avenue. Walt and wife Lillian's house was near the corner at 2495 Lyric Avenue; Roy and Edna's house was adjacent at 2491 Lyric Avenue. Both couples moved into the houses in 1927.

Top: The home of Roy and Edna Disney at 2491 Lyric.  Bottom:  The home of Walt and Lillian Disney at 2495 Lyric.

We visited a few nearby landmarks that were featured in our original post, including the Shakespeare Bridge and John Marshall High School.

Our final stop in Los Feliz was the very significant area surrounding the intersection of Kingswell and North Vermont Avenues.  4406 Kingswell Avenue was the home of Robert Disney, uncle to Walt and Roy.  This was Walt's first residence upon arriving in California in 1923.  For a brief time, Walt worked on his various animation projects in the property's garage.

For a little over a year, Walt and Roy shared a rented room at 4409 Kingswell Avenue in the home of Charles and Nettie Schneider.

One block off of North Vermont is the small apartment building at 4637 Melbourne Avenue where Walt and Lillian briefly lived following their marriage in 1925.

Native to this area during the 1930s and 1940s was the moniker "Hollymont," most likely a combination of Hollywood and Vermont.  Located on North Vermont near Kingswell was the Holly Mont Market grocery store and the still surviving Hollymont Apartments.  Disney Imagineers paid homage to Hollymont terminology in the recent refurbishment of Disney's California Adventure with a sign advertising the Hollymont Property Associates.

The most important Disney-related location in this area is 4649-4651 Kingswell Avenue, where the original Disney Brothers Studio emerged in 1923.  The brothers and their small staff originally shared office space with a realtor at 4651; they moved next door to 4649 in early 1924.  The Extra Copy store has occupied that spot now for quite some time with a street address of 4647 Kingswell.

The store is a very small space but it does manage to pay homage to its history with a small Disney shrine on its interior left side wall.

I was especially delighted to photograph the Extra Copy storefront in order to create historical composites similar to the one created for our original post.

Walt Disney's Los Angeles: 1923-1931

Editor's Note: We will be exploring Los Angeles today as part of our Californy er Bust road trip.  Part of the day, we will be navigating by way of our 2010 Walt Disney"s Los Angeles posts that traveled historically through the area of the original 2719 Hyperion Disney Studio. We have combined those two original posts into one feature now presented here.  Check back again for a photo diary of today's travels.

At roughly the same time Mickey Mouse premiered at the Colony Theatre on November 18, 1928, Elsie Robinson gave birth to William Arthur Robinson in Los Angeles, California.  He wasn't even a day old when his father, newspaperman Chester Robinson, bestowed upon him the nickname "Buddy."  Buddy and his parents lived in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, just east of Hollywood.

On his fifth birthday in 1933, Buddy and his father rode the Red Car over to Glendale where the Alexander Theatre was located.  It was there that Buddy saw his first Mickey Mouse cartoon.
 
On the way home, they got off the Red Car early and walked down a street past a few vacant lots and turned a corner onto Hyperion Avenue.  At the corner was a gas station, and next to it on the left was a series of large buildings.

Buddy remembers, "My Dad lifted me up to sit on his shoulders and then he pointed to a large sign perched on top of one of the buildings.  There on the sign was Mickey Mouse, happily waving down to my father and me as we stood looking up from the sidewalk.  It was silly, but we both happily waved back."  Buddy and his father were standing in front of the Walt Disney Studios, located at 2719 Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles.

2719 Hyperion.  It is a simple address that has evolved into a near-iconic term for Disney historians, journalists and enthusiasts.  And we would like to as modestly as possible think that we have contributed to that evolution over the course of the last four years of 2719 Hyperion.com.  The history of the Hyperion Avenue studios is generally well-documented; in fact, two well-known Disney historians are each currently writing books that focus on that very subject.  So in discussing 2719 Hyperion, we thought we would approach it more in a geographical context.  This is because the area immediately surrounding the Hyperion Avenue location is nearly as rich in Disney history as the studio itself.  These neighborhoods  encompass an area of approximately two square miles just east of Hollywood.

We are going to navigate this geography by means of young Buddy Robinson, who we just introduced a few moments ago.  In the interests of full disclosure, Buddy Robinson is a wholly fictional entity.  We have created Buddy as a way to lift this exploration above the level of a dry dissertation and hopefully create a more entertaining, but still informative presentation.

As we explore the area surrounding 2719 Hyperion, as a point of reference, we are going to use this 1939 street map of Los Angeles, that was produced and distributed by the Standard Oil Company of California.  The Walt Disney Studios was closely affiliated with Standard Oil during this time period.  In 1939, Disney produced a series of four-page Travel Tykes comic book premiums available at Standard Service Stations.  The studio also produced a commercial cartoon short entitled The Standard Parade that tied into this promotion.  Just to note, within the 2719 Hyperion Archives there is a series of posts that feature Travel Tykes newspaper ads that were featured in the Los Angeles Times during the spring of 1939.

We are going to follow Buddy Robinson as he spends a Saturday afternoon during the spring of 1939 traversing his neighborhood.  But before we do that, we are going to briefly jump back in time to that day in 1933 when Buddy and his father visited the Alexander Theatre in Glendale.

The Alexander Theatre is especially significant to early Disney history.  As it was located just a few miles from 2719 Hyperion Avenue, Walt Disney used the Alexander Theatre numerous times throughout the years to run preview screenings of many of his cartoon short subjects. In their book Silly Symphonies, authors Russell Merit and J.B. Kaufman document preview screenings of Disney cartoons there as early as 1931 with the shorts Egyptian Melodies and The Clock Store.  Studio veteran Jack Kinney noted, "When a picture was finished, it was usually previewed at the Alexander Theater in Glendale to get audience reaction. After the show, the boys and girls would gather in the lobby and discuss the various scenes with Walt."

But now let us return to the spring of 1939.  Buddy Robinson is leaving his house located at 4410 Clarissa Avenue in Los Feliz.  Buddy's home was located about ¾ of a mile from the Hyperion studio as the crow flies; traveling by street routes added an additional ¼ mile to the journey.  Buddy's Aunt Connie (his mother's sister) who lived with his family would frequently walk that distance on a daily basis; she was employed as an ink and paint girl at the Disney Studio.

 

Buddy travels a couple of blocks west of his home to Hillhurst Avenue where he turns south; a block later he turns west onto Franklin Avenue where he travels two more blocks to Vermont Avenue and a business district that includes stores, restaurants, and the Los Feliz Theatre.

He might stop in and pick up some candy at either the Los Feliz Mart or the Holly Mont Market; and he'll probably run into the Owl Drug Company and buy a comic book or two if he has enough money.  He checks to see what's playing at the Los Feliz Theatre and decides that the double bill of St. Louis Blues and Girl Downstairs is not to his liking. 

Shortly after they were married in 1925, Walt and Lillian Disney lived briefly in an apartment located a half block away from these shops at 4637 Melbourne Avenue.

Les Clark, one of Disney's legendary "Nine Old Men" met Walt Disney for the first time at a small restaurant near the intersection of Vermont and Kingswell.  Clark told Disney historian Don Peri, "It was a malt shop, confectionary store, and they served lunch and other meals."  He remembered, "I met Walt in the summer of 1925.  He used to come in and have lunch almost every day.  When I graduated from high school, I got in touch with him and asked him for a job."

Veteran Warner Bros. animator Friz Freleng remembered renting a room in a house on Vermont Avenue when he briefly worked for Disney in 1927.  Freleng noted that Roy Disney would pick him up and drive him to the studio every morning, but added, "But after work we had to walk home, because he didn't care when we got home, but he did care when we got to work!" 

Buddy rides his bike one block south of Melbourne Avenue and turns east onto Kingswell Avenue.  Here he will pass one of the most significant places in Disney history.

Near the corner of Vermont and Kingswell is the location where Roy Disney and Walt Disney established the Disney Brothers Studio on October 8, 1923.  The fledgling studio shared space with a real estate office at 4651 Kingswell Avenue.

The initial rent for the location was $10/month.  The studio opened for business on October 16, 1923, the day after Walt accepted New York distributor Margaret Winkler's offer to distribute the new Alice Comedies series.  Walt and Roy, and newly hired ink and paint girl Kathleen Dollard comprised the entire staff of the operation.  On January 14, 1924, the future Mrs. Walt Disney, Lillian Bounds was added to the staff as a cel painter.  Walt and Lillian's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, remembered her mother speaking of the couple's first kiss, that likely happened at Kingswell Avenue.  ". . . it was very sweet . . . she was taking dictation from him, and he leaned across the desk and kissed her.  I find that very romantic.  I don't think I've ever told anyone other than family about that, simply because no one seemed interested."

In February of 1924, the studio moved into larger quarters directly next door at 4649 Kingswell where they were able to display the Disney Brothers name on a storefront window. 

Here is a view of how this area looks today.

A copy store now occupies the location that was once briefly, the Disney Brothers Studio.

As Buddy heads further east on Kingswell, he comes to the home of Robert Disney, uncle to the Disney brothers. 

It was here, at 4406 Kingswell Avenue, where Walt first lived upon arriving in southern California in late summer of 1923.  Robert Disney had moved to Los Angeles the prior year and earned a living working in real estate.  For a brief time, Walt worked out of his uncle's garage.

It was from this location that October 16, 1923 that Walt wrote the family of Virginia Davis in Kansas City, requesting that they come to Hollywood so Virginia could star in the new series of Alice Comedies.

Walt also had printed stationary that used the 4406 Kingswell address.  He used a piece of that stationary for a subsequent letter to Mrs. Davis on October 24, 1923.

For a little over a year, Walt and Roy lived together in a rented room across the street at 4409 Kingswell, the residence of Charles and Nettie Schneider, and then later at an apartment at an unknown address.  As roommates, the two proved quite incompatible; so much so that a frustrated Roy sent for his Kansas City sweetheart, Edna Francis.  The two were married at Uncle Robert's home on April 11, 1925.

Buddy suddenly remembers that he wants to check what's playing at the Vista Theatre, so he points his bicycle south off Kingswell onto Hillhurst Avenue.  He travels the four blocks to the corner of Hillhurst and Hollywood Boulevard where the Vista is located.

He decides that the double bill of Tailspin and The Three Musketeers is to his liking and quickly exchanges a dime for a ticket and a few hours of vintage Hollywood escapism.

It is important to remember that at this time, the movie industry was a growing and pervasive presence in the Los Feliz and Silver Lake neighborhoods, and of course in Hollywood just to the west.  Data from the 1930 U.S. Census indicates that a large number of individuals then living in these areas were associated with work within the motion picture industry.

Across the street from the Vista Theatre was one of Hollywood's then well known poverty row studios.  Monogram Studios produced such B-movie fare as Boris Karloff's Mr. Wong series, The East End Kids and The Bowery Boys and was home to numerous western matinee idols such as a young John Wayne, Tex Ritter, Hoot Gibson, Buck Jones and Johnny Mack Brown.

Walt and Lillian Disney lived for a brief time very near to this location.  The couple rented an apartment at 1307 North Commonwealth Avenue sometime during the mid-1920s.  There is no trace left of the house or building they resided in and in fact the entire 1300 and 1400 blocks of North Commonwealth Avenue no longer exist.  North Commonwealth would have intersected Sunset Drive very close to where the Monogram Studios came into being in 1931.

Today, the entire area, including the original Monogram Studio building, is part of the KCET Studios complex.  KCET is the PBS affiliate for the Los Angeles area.

After watching  movies and filling up on popcorn and Coca-Cola, Buddy pedals his bicycle north on Talmadge Street and eventually passes the former Vitagraph Studios that was sold to Warner Bros. in 1925.

Built in 1912, Vitagraph was one of the earliest of the Hollywood studios and enjoyed the presence of such film pioneers as Douglas Fairbanks, Lillian Gish, Rudolph Valentino, Mary Pickford, Cecil B. DeMille and D. W. Griffith.  ABC Television acquired the property in 1949.  Disney assumed ownership of the complex when it acquired ABC in 1996.  During the time Walt was active in the Los Feliz/Silver Lake area, the studio would have been referred to as the Warner Bros. Vitagraph or the Warner Bros. Annex.  It was located just a block away from Robert Disney's home.

A few blocks north, Buddy turns right on Franklin Avenue and pedals across the Shakespeare Bridge, a well known Los Feliz landmark.

 Just after crossing the bridge, he turns left on St. George Street.  At the intersection of St. George and Lyric Avenue, he passes two small adjacent houses that were once the homes of the Disney brothers.

Walt and Lillian resided at 2495 Lyric Avenue while Roy and his wife Edna lived next door at 2491.  Both couples moved into the small homes in 1927.

The houses were built from modified prefabricated kits manufactured by the Pacific Ready Cut Homes company.  Michael Barrier noted in his book The Animated Man, construction on the two homes began in August of 1926 and was completed by the following December.  The cost of the land and the two kit houses was estimated by Roy Disney to be approximately $16,000.

In the summer of 1932, Walt and Lillian moved into their second home, a house they had built at 4053 Woking Way in the Los Feliz Hills.  Though not on Buddy's bicycle route, the house was approximately one mile from the Hyperion Avenue studios.

Walt and Lillian lived at this location until their move to Holmby Hills in the late 1940s.  This was the home where the Disney's raised daughters Diane and Sharon.  It was also well known for its swimming pool that was perched precariously on a high hillside.  Roy O. Disney once said, "He hung this swimming pool up on the corner of this darn thing.  It's a granite hill and we were taking bets to see if it would stand."

In 1939, Walt appeared in magazine advertisements for DeSota that featured photographs taken at the Woking Way estate.

Roy and Edna Disney moved out of their Lyric Avenue home in 1934 and relocated to 4365 Forman Avenue in North Hollywood, not far from where he and Walt would build the Burbank studio at the end of that decade.  Roy would ultimately live in two other homes in that same North Hollywood/Burbank area prior to his death in 1971.

Buddy rides his bike a short distance further down St. George where he passes John Marshall High School.

John Marshall High School was opened in 1930 and its tall central tower can often be seen looming in the distance in photos of the Hyperion studio.  It has long been a favorite location of Hollywood filmmakers.  Movies such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Grease and more recently, Transformers have used the school as a backdrop.

Studio veteran Jack Kinney noted in his biography that he and number of other studio employees lived in apartments on Griffith Park Boulevard just a few blocks away from John Marshall.  He also remembered that he and other members of the story department would sneak out of the studio to watch football games at the high school.  Kinney remembered, "We were too cheap to pay twenty-five cents for a ticket in the grandstands, and we soon discovered that by climbing up an ivy-covered bank we had a first-class, close-up view of the action on the field through a chain-link fence."  According to Kinney, the school's disgruntled principal ultimately turned on sprinklers to discourage the freeloading Disney employees.

Directly across from John Marshall, Buddy turns down Evans Street where after one very long extended block he arrives at Hyperion Avenue.  He turns left on Hyperion Avenue.  He quickly drops off some overdue books at the Hyperion Branch Station of the Los Angeles Public Library, located at 2619 Hyperion Avenue.

After leaving the library, he continues one block up Hyperion Avenue to where it intersects with Griffith Park Boulevard.  He has reached the location of the Walt Disney Studios.

We have arrived at 2719 Hyperion Avenue.

During the studios' earliest of years, the area surrounding 2719 Hyperion was a generally quiet, empty place.  Animation director Ben Sharpsteen remembered visiting for the first time in 1929:

"I walked through what was mainly a residential development, a section of town which had been laid out with streets and curbs, but which had very few homes at the time.  It was late March and the grass and weeds were very tall and they were growing up through the sidewalk in places.  It was not a street that was very much used at the time.  I thought this was a very strange neighborhood for a cartoon studio, but I finally came to a main intersection as directed and I found the number on a small building next to a service station on the corner.  Sure enough, the sign over the door read 'Walt Disney Studios.'"

In the decade that followed, the Hyperion studio grew, in what many observers described as an almost "organic" expansion.  Existing buildings were expanded and extended; nearby buildings were absorbed and additional facilities emerged on the opposite side of Hyperion Avenue.

The Disney Annex was added to the studio sometime around 1936. During the late 1930s, it was in this place that aspiring artists were typically given tryout periods to prove their talent and skills, working mainly as in-betweeners under the watchful and often harsh supervision of studio manager George Drake. Part of the training process also involved art classes taught by Don Graham.

In less than one year following Buddy's travels on that Saturday afternoon in May 1939, the Hyperion studio would be gone.  By early 1940, Walt Disney and his entire operation relocated to a sprawling new studio complex in Burbank.  Buddy's Aunt Connie did not follow the company to Burbank but instead was married later in 1940 and moved to Pasadena with her new husband.  Decades later, a supermarket would occupy the location, and the address, 2719 Hyperion, would cease to exist.

Buddy turns his bike around.  It is getting late and he needs to get home for dinner.  He pauses for a moment and looks up at the large sign on the top one of the studio buildings.  He fondly remembers his birthday in 1933 when his father brought him to this place.  He scans the surrounding street and confirms that he is alone except for the occasional passing cars.  He shyly lifts his hand and waves.  And from the sign that rises high above the address that is 2719 Hyperion Avenue, Mickey Mouse waves back.