Snow White’s ‘Voice’ and a ‘Nine Old Men’ Classic Animator Recall the Groundbreaking Animated Film

Walt Disney graces the cover of the Dec. 27, 1937, TIME magazine with characters from his animated feature “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” which premiered six days earlier, on Dec. 21, at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles.

(The core article was first published in June 1987 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the film.)

“That’s what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again.” ~ Walt Disney

By Gregory N. Joseph

MIRROR, MIRROR on the wall — what cartoon turns 50 this year and is still one of the fairest Hollywood success stories of them all?

That would be Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” the film industry’s first full-length animated feature, and by many accounts, the savior of the very studio that Mickey Mouse built.

The 83-minute movie premiered Dec. 21, 1937, in Los Angeles and went on to become the all-time box office champ before “Gone With the Wind,” and was second only to the Civil War epic on the 1930s’ movie-moneymaking list.

“Snow White” will be re-released on July 17 in 4,000 theaters throughout the world, the first time a movie has been exhibited simultaneously in more than 60 countries, including the United States, the Soviet Union and China (the date just “happens” to fall on the 32nd anniversary of the opening of the Disneyland amusement park, an event that was watched by 83 million people at home on television, a whopping audience for the time).

To this point, Disney Studio’s adaptation of the brothers Grimm fable has grossed $330 million, after previous re-releases in 1944, 1952, 1958, 1967, 1975 and 1983. The film’s total revenues after this round of screenings are expected to place it among the 40 highest-grossing films of all time.

Even those who worked on the picture view it as something special.

“I was at the world premiere, at the old Carthay Circle Theatre,” recalled Ward Kimball, one of Disney’s celebrated “Nine Old Men” animators from the studio’s classic era, who worked on the film and went on to create the character of Disney’s iconic Jiminy Cricket. “The biggest stars in Hollywood were there — we sat right behind Clark Gable and Carole Lombard.

“The surprising thing was the when Snow White was on the slab after eating the poisoned apple and the dwarfs came in around her, people in the audience — all these big stars, everybody — they were all crying. They were still blowing their noses when they came out, and their eyes were all red when they got under the Klieg lights.

“No other animated film before, and maybe since, could do that to people. To me it’s the one perfect animated picture.”

One night in 1934, at the height of the Depression, Walt Disney asked 40 of his animators to return to the studio after dinner so he could discuss an idea with them.

They were ushered into a small recording studio, the lights dimmed and, for the next four hours, Disney proceeded to act out a fairy tale about the beautiful princess proclaimed the fairest of them all by the magic mirror who flees her jealous stepmother and is aided by seven dwarfs and rescued from a deep, poison-induced sleep by the kiss of a charming prince.

When Disney was finished, he told the gathering of animators that the story he had just recounted — “Snow White” — was going to be the studio’s first full-length animated feature. In fact, it would be the first in the history of the motion picture industry.

Critics predicted artistic and financial doom, and famously labeled it “Disney’s Folly.”

At the time, movie theaters thought it impossible to make a cartoon that could compete with live-action movies; people might sit through seven or eight minutes of typical animated antics, the reasoning went, but nobody could or would endure 80 or 90 minutes of it.

But Disney looked upon the film as an economic necessity. When double-feature bills were introduced during the 1930s, his cartoon fillers were being squeezed off the screen, casualties of running time.

For this reason, he had been considering a feature-length cartoon for several years, having asked Mary Pickford in the early 1930s about starring in a film version of “Alice in Wonderland,” with the remainder of the cast consisting of animated characters; a similar proposal with Will Rogers in “Rip Van Winkle” was made, and also failed to materialize.

“There was only one way we could do it successfully and that was to plunge ahead and go for broke — shoot the works, “ Disney later said. “There would be no compromising on money, talent or time.”

Disney officials now say that the studio was in financial jeopardy at the time the film was released, and that “Snow White” saved it. Some film historians disagree, although even they admit the studio would have been debt-ridden for years if the picture had failed.

No matter, it was a roller-coaster ride financially, and emotionally, from the start.

The only real ally outside the studio was W.G. Van Schmus, general manager of New York’s Radio City Music Hall, who agreed to book the film sight unseen, a move that gave Disney’s staff a boost in morale.

But no sooner had Disney learned of this than he was told by his brother, Roy, that $250,000 would have to be borrowed before the picture could be completed.

Walt Disney took bits and pieces of the film to show bankers as collateral. He later recalled: “On the appointed day, I sat alone with Joe Rosenberg of the Bank of America, watching those bits of pieces on a screen, trying to sell him a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of faith. After the lights came on, he didn’t show the slightest reaction to what he’d just seen. He just walked out of the projection room, remarked that it was a nice day, and yawned. Then he turned to me and said, ‘Walt, that picture will make a pot of money.’ We got the loan.”

During the three years the story was on the drawing boards, the Disney brothers put up everything they owned as collateral.

Some sources say the picture was originally budgeted for $150,000. Kimball claims the figure was closer to $500,000. The cost ultimately reach $1.5 million as the result of staff additions and Disney’s insistence on quality.

He didn’t skimp on anything. During the course of the project, live models were photographed for animators to study so they might achieve realistic actions in the characters they were drawing. Marjorie Belcher — later to become Marge Champion of the much-respected Marge and Gower Champion dance duo — pantomimed the actions of Snow White.

Voices in the film were painstakingly selected. Harry Stockwell (father of actors Dean and Guy) was Prince Charming, Lucille La Verne was the queen, Moroni Olsen was the magic mirror, Pinto Colvig (also the voice of Goofy) was Sleepy and Grumpy, Otis Harlan was Happy, Scotty Mattraw was Bashful, Roy Atwell was Doc, and Billy Gilbert — Hollywood’s most famous sneezer — was, appropriately, Sneezy.

Snow White’s voice was supplied by Adriana Caselotti, the 18-year-old daughter of Los Angeles vocal coach Guido Caselotti. When a Disney representative telephoned him seeking recommendations for a Snow White voice, Adriana surprised her father by picking up the extension and singing her way into an audition. She was the first to try out; one year later, after Disney had listened to 148 other singers, she got the part.

A resident of Hancock Park in Los Angeles, she still lives the role, passing out cards with Snow White’s picture and breaking into songs from the film like “I’m Wishing” and “With a Smile and a Song” to cheer up people.

She chuckles that Disney forgot to leave her a ticket for the world premiere, and that she and a friend sneaked in and watched most of the picture while hiding in the theater balcony. She remembers good-naturedly that she earned $970 for providing the voice of Snow White — she was getting $20 a day, she said, but when she learned the dwarfs were getting $150 a day, her salary was raised — to $50.

“I’m not some kind of nut or something,” she said. “I’m an old lady now, but I feel like I’m still that little girl. I can recite the whole script. I’m still that little girl.”

Production of “Snow White” was completed in 1937. More than 750 Disney artists had worked on the movie, and the finished product contains more than 2 million drawings. Countless others were left on the cutting room floor.

The most famous victim of Disney’s cuts in “Snow White” was Kimball, then a 22-year-old animator who had just joined the studio. For eight months, Kimball had poured “my heart and soul” into the rowdy soup-eating sequence involving the dwarfs. Disney cut it out.

“Walt called me into his office and apologized,” recounted Kimball. “He told me he was sorry, it was one of his favorite sequences, but that it had to be cut. He was a genius about knowing when the plot strayed. He’d never done a picture that long before and knew we had to keep it under 90 minutes. When I analyzed it in my own mind, I knew he was right.”

Another sequence of Kimball’s, in which the dwarfs make a bed for Snow White, was excised for the same reason, and although his animation of vultures in the wicked queen’s death scene remained, he was keenly disappointed.

To rekindle Kimball’s enthusiasm, Disney soon asked him to supervise the creation of an especially pivotal character in the studio’s next big animated production, “Pinocchio”: Jiminy Cricket would go on to become one of animation’s most recognizable figures and a cultural reference point.

But that doesn’t necessarily make that film Kimball’s all-time favorite Disney project.

“When people ask me that,” he said, “I never hesitate. I won a couple of Academy Awards for animating two Disney short subjects, worked on Walt’s TV show and on Disney World — and I never hesitate to say what my favorite project was: It was ‘Snow White.’”

(Walt Disney died on Dec. 15, 1966, of complications from cancer, 10 days after his 65th birthday. Caselotti died of cancer at her Los Angeles home on Jan. 19, 1997, at the age of 80. Kimball died on July 8, 2002, in Arcadia, Calif., of complications from pneumonia at 88 — a locomotive in the Disneyland Railroad was named in his honor in 2005.)

My story on the 50th anniversary of Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” included interviews with “the voice of Snow White,” Adriana Caselotti (whose voice also can be heard in “The Wizard of Oz” and “It’s a Wonderful Life”), and animator Ward Kimball, a confidant of Walt Disney’s and one of the studio’s “Nine Old Men” classic animators, as well as what amounted to a private screening for my family and me at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. “Snow White” was the first full-length traditionally animated feature film and Disney’s first animated film. In 1989, the Library of Congress selected it as one of the first 25 films for preservation in the National Film Registry, and in 2008, the American Film Institute ranked it among the 100 greatest American films and also deemed it the greatest American animated film of all time. It was nominated for an Academy Award for best musical score, and the following year, Walt Disney was awarded an honorary Oscar — a unique award, which consisted of one normal-sized statuette and seven miniature statuettes. Child actress Shirley Temple famously made the presentation. The film remains enormously popular, and worldwide, its inflation-adjusted earnings top the animation list.

To mark the Walt Disney Company’s 100th anniversary in 2023, a restored and remastered version of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was released in 4k Ultra HD Blu-ray (above and below).

Copy of certificate issued by the Kansas City, Missouri, School District , dated June 8, 1917. stating that “Walter E. Disney” has satisfactorily completed elementary school and can be admitted to high school. A mere 20 years later, Disney produced his groundbreaking animated feature film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

Light table used by Walt Disney and his business partner, Ub Iwerks, when they worked together at an advertising agency in Kansas City, now on display at the Walt Disney Hometown Museum in Marceline, Mo., where Disney spent part of his youth. The town, located two hours northeast of Kansas City, off Highway 36, is said to be the inspiration for Main Street U.S.A. at Disney’s various theme parks.

Thank-you letter and autographed photo from Adriana Caselotti (1916–1997), the voice of Snow White in Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” and a souvenir stamped envelope from Disneyland celebrating the 50th anniversary of the film. Caselotti, who was proclaimed a Disney Legend in 1994, the first female voiceover artist to earn such a distinction, had two other notable film roles, both uncredited: in MGM’s 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz” she provided the voice of Juliet during The Tin Man’s song “If I Only Had a Heart,” speaking the line, “Wherefore art though, Romeo?”, and in 1946, in Frank Capra’s beloved Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” that’s her voice singing in Martini’s bar as a distraught George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) is praying.

Autographed photo from Adriana Caselotti, the voice of Snow White in Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” and a souvenir stamped envelope from Disneyland celebrating the 50th anniversary of the film.

Ward Kimball at the drawing board as Walt Disney looks on.

The premiere of Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” on Dec. 21, 1937, at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles.

At Academy Award ceremonies on Feb. 23, 1939, child actress Shirley Temple presents Walt Disney with an honorary award (actually awards) for “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” — a regular Oscar and seven little Oscars. The year before, the film had been nominated for best musical score.

Walt Disney Productions’ legendary “Nine Old Men” refers to the studio’s core animators who created some of its best-known cartoons, from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” in 1937 to “The Rescuers” in 1977. Playfully christened by Disney himself, they worked on both short films and features, some going on to become respected directors in their own right. The nine were Les Clark, Marc Davis, Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, Ward Kimball, Eric Larson, John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, and Frank Thomas. All members of the group are now deceased and have been honored as Disney Legends. I had the privilege of interviewing and profiling several of them.

A 1968 six-cent U.S. postage stamp bearing Walt Disney’s image.

Fess Elisha Parker Jr. (1924–2010) — better known as Fess Parker — played the 19th-century Tennessee frontiersman and politician Davy Crockett on the ABC television series “Disneyland” in a five-part serial from 1954 to 1955, with the first three episodes and last two subsequently edited into the big-screen theatrical releases, “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier” and “Davy Crockett and the River Pirates,” respectively. In the process, Davy Crockett — and Parker — became cultural icons, enduring touchstones in the lives and memories of Baby Boomers. Crockett products, including ubiquitous coonskin caps, flooded stores and probably still reside in Baby Boomers’ closets. And doubtless many people still have old copies of the franchise’s hit song “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” one version recorded by Parker himself, stored in their vintage record collections and still find themselves warbling the lyric, “Davy, Davy Crockett” that was woven throughout the productions. After playing Crockett, Parker most famously went on to star in and produce the long-running (1964–70), very Crockett-like television series “Daniel Boone.” In the 1950s, NBC had approached him about doing a Crockett TV series, but Disney nixed the idea, saying it would be competing with his own program. Parker ultimately left acting altogether, becoming a winemaker and resort owner in California. In the late 1980s, when the Crockett character re-emerged with a younger actor in the role for a new TV miniseries, I called Parker for his perspective — not only had he played Crockett, but he had earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Texas. Although Crockett had supposedly been killed at the Alamo, a storyline that was followed in the Disney miniseries and elsewhere, Parker insisted there was evidence Crockett in fact might have survived. During our discussion about his own career, Parker confided he had considered a run for the U.S. Senate but had backed out, adding ruefully, “It seems the guy who played Davy Crockett might have been a little chicken.” I objected, saying he was being too tough on himself, that his bone-honest characterizations had inspired a whole generation, including me (like many other Baby Boomers, I can still recite the Crockett mantra: “Be sure you’re right, then go ahead”). When we concluded our conversation, he insisted upon sending autographed Crockett photos, including a copy of this one, to my three children — which we still have, framed, and put away with other family treasures. Parker said he enjoyed our chat and hoped I would call again. I never did, I didn’t want to impose. I wish I had. He was a very nice man.

Vintage map of Disneyland, which opened on Sunday, July 17, 1955 (a much-anticipated event watched by 83 million people on television). It was the first of the Disney amusement parks and the only one which Walt Disney himself had a direct hand in designing and constructing before his untimely death from complications of cancer on Dec. 15, 1966, just 10 days after his 65th birthday. He initially sought to build a small amusement park across from his studio, but the Burbank City Council rejected his proposal and he stormed out, looking elsewhere. He settled on Anaheim, a town 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

One of my Disney stories was a profile of Tommy Walker (1922–1986), shown here in 1964 with Walt Disney at Disneyland. Walker was serving as band leader at the University of Southern California when Disney saw USC’s halftime show in 1955 and asked Walker to join him as entertainment director of his new theme park in Anaheim, a post Walker would go on to hold until 1967. Walker planned the opening day festivities and events like Dixieland Disneyland, Disneyland After Dark, and parades and fireworks shows. Among Walker’s other notable accomplishments were composing the six-note “Charge!” fanfare, serving as the pageantry director for the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California, co-producing the fireworks display at Liberty Weekend in Manhattan, overseeing Harvard University’s 350th anniversary celebration, and serving as executive producer for special events for Radio City Music Hall Productions in New York. He was the son of the popular Disneyland band leader Vesey Walker (1893–1977), who organized and directed more than 50 military, college, high school and youth bands. Vesey brought his talents to Disneyland for what was supposed to be a two-week run at the park’s opening, but wound up performing there for the next 15 years before retiring in 1970.

Disneyland band leader Vesey Walker (1893–1977), father of the park’s entertainment director, Tommy Walker, in its earliest years. Vesey performed at the park from its opening in 1955 until his retiement in 1970.

Space Mountain, a roller coaster attraction located in Disneyland’s Tomorrowland, opened on May 27, 1977, as the second incarnation of the Space Mountain concept, the first having been launched at Walt Disney World ‘s Magic Kingdom in 1975. As part of the invited press contingent, we were on hand when the Disneyland Space Mountain opened in 1977, going on the first rides and receiving this as a keepsake.

Disneyland’s immensely popular Matterhorn ride, located between Tomorrowland and Fantasyland, was unveiled in 1959. In 1978, in part to keep pace with the park’s “rocket” rides like Space Mountain (not to mention faster rides at competing amusement parks), it was reimagined with newer bobsleds and a newly designed track system. We were invited to the opening of that, and gifted with these slick collector’s windbreakers, which we still have (and wear).

… and a close-up of the patch on our gift Matterhorn windbreakers.

When I was researching my story about the 50th anniversary of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” Disney invited my family and me to the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank for what amounted to a private screening of the film followed by a tour of the backlot. Before leaving, the head of the studio’s publicity department handed me this drawing of chipmunks Chip ‘n Dale by Bill Justice, one of Disney’s most celebrated animators. Justice (1914–2011), who joined Disney in 1937, worked on the likes of “Fantasia” and “Peter Pan,” and is best known as the animator not only of Chip n’ Dale but of the rabbit Thumper from “Bambi.” In all, he worked on 57 short subjects and 19 features for the studio. Justice also worked on designs and characters for Disneyland and other Disney parks and resorts, and, as a member of Disney’s “Imagineering” Department, programmed figures for some popular attractions including Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, and Bear Country Jamboree.

When I profiled the great science fiction writer Ray Bradbury (“Fahrenheit 451”), the mention of Walt Disney brought a suprising response. The story goes that Bradbury met Disney in 1963, when they almost quite literally bumped into each other while Christmas shopping at Bullock’s Wilshire in Los Angeles. Bradbury noticed “a man passed by with so many gifts he couldn’t seem to hold them all. And then I saw it was Walt Disney!” He introduced himself and suggested lunch sometime. Disney instead invited him to his office at his studio, and what Bradbury described as a “quiet friendship” developed. At Disney’s request, Bradbury later provided an outline for the Epcot Center’s central Spaceship Earth building at Walt Disney World in Florida. Bradbury’s last film project before our conversation, in fact, was for Disney Studios — “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” “The reason we’re rebuilding our cities is Disney,” Bradbury told me. “His legacy is incredible … we’re all children of Disney.”

Thank-you note to me from Ray Bradbury on his unusual but very appropriate bright-orange stationery after my profile of him was published. It was easy to see how he and and Disney were kindred spirits.

Press material for the 20th anniversary of Walt Disney World in September 1991. One wonders what the Walt Disney of 1937, given his early struggles including fighting to bring “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” to the screen, might have thought about his burgeoning entertainment empire, even with his vision, imagination and optimism. And would he have approved?

My press badge for attending the annual gathering of the Points of Light Foundation which was held at Walt Disney World during the park’s 20th anniversary celebration in 1991. I sat next to Roy E. Disney, the son of Roy O. Disney, Walt’s brother and strong right arm in building the Disney empire who pushed through Walt Disney World after Walt’s untimely death in 1966. The Points of Light Foundation had been created in 1990 as a nonprofit organization in Washington D.C., an idea referred to by President George H.W. Bush in his 1989 inaugural address: ”I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good.” The president, accompanied by family members, spoke at the Disney World gathering.