The first Disney star was female! From Steve Greenberg's blog:
Not many people remember Virginia Davis. Her main career work began 86 years ago. But she was the first Disney star, and it was she — not Mickey Mouse — who launched the Walt Disney empire.
And so we picture the Good Ol' Boys network of Mickey, Donald, and Goofy plotting poor Virginia's demise, scheming to give her less pay, pigeon-holing her in Princess movies, and finally rewriting the history books to erase her contribution to cartoon history. Donald agrees to go along with the plot as long as Mickey guarantees him a solid second-banana slot, pulling him past Horace Horsecollar. And nobody cares what Goofy thinks. Nobody asks Goofy. "Shut up, Goofy; you're out of your element."
Damn Toons.
Daisy Duck and Minnie Mouse, during a brief fling with college-inspired feminist Boshevikism, tried to set the record straight, until Uncle Walt threatened to reveal their part in the Fatty Arbuckle scandal...
ReplyDeleteVirginia Davis died a week or so ago. I was reading in Gabler's Disneybiography that she was in the running to voice Snow White, but was rejected because she sounded like a woman (as opposed to a girl) - she was in her late teens then.
ReplyDeleteFrom what was in the news out here in KC, she was (in recent years) pushing to get Disney's original animation studio turned into a museum - which has still not happened. The building is about a mile awya from where I live now - it's a shame the city hasn't thought about the money they'd make in honoring one of its best and brightest (and most controversial) figures.
Then again, Charlie Parker grew up in the building adjacent to me (no joke!), and its barely livable.
At least the building down the street that Ella Fitzgerald owned and lived in is still in good shape.
T
I would imagine Donald was promised Europe.
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