Today, the Walt Disney Company is a multi-billion dollar hype machine cranking out a stream of press releases on a daily basis. But long ago, the Disney studio was literally a garage-based organization and hardly the talk of the town. Still, the 22-year-old aspiring mogul managed to get his name in print – no small feat, even in 1924.
Hollywood bigshots with enough time on their hands to browse the back pages of the Los Angeles Times might have come across this blurb at the bottom of a long column of movieland news on July 6th, 1924. I’m curious as to how this story came about; perhaps it was the work of Disney’s distributor in New York. In any case, one could hardly have guessed at the time the magnitude of events which would result from this simple announcement.
ACTORS MIX WITH CARTOONSIn Hollywood a young cartoonist by the name of Walt Disney is making a series of twelve animated cartoon productions. Real people are seen acting with pen-and-ink actors. They are known as the “Alice” series and 5-year-old Virginia Davis, de luxe child dancer, has the big part. M.J. Winkler of New York is releasing the comedies.
Neat! what a cool post. I love pieces that give a glimpse into history and how the studios were starting up