|
Walt Disney Is Coming To Town
By Stephen Schochet
In 1923,
twenty-one-year-old Walt Disney arrived in Los Angeles fresh from the
disappointment of his first cartoon studio going bankrupt in Kansas City. He
went to see his twenty-nine-year-old brother Roy in the Veteran's Hospital
were he was recovering from tuberculosis. Roy, a former bank teller and navy
man was concerned about his brother's skinniness. "Hey kid, haven't you been
eating? I'm supposed to be the sick one. So now that you're in L.A. what are
you are going to do with yourself?" "I don't know. I've given up on
animation. But I've got to get into show business somehow. I'll think
I'll try and become a director."
Walt who had filmed some
newsreel footage in Kansas City,
printed a business card stating he was a
member of the press, which he used to finagle his way onto studio lots. He
had a meeting with a secretary at Metro. "Yes, I had my own studio in Kansas
City, I made cartoons and live action films perhaps you heard of me?" "No I
can't say that I have. And we really have a lot of people coming here
looking for work and no jobs." Metro was in a state of chaos, Rudolph
Valentino was demanding more money and they had frozen his salary.
Because of the movie The Four Horseman Of The Apocalypse (1921)
Valentino was now an international star who was surviving by hunting
rabbits in the Santa Monica Mountains. Walt, who would later know great
fame combined with money trouble could have identified, but he had his own
problems.
Turned away at Metro Walt decided to go to Charlie
Chaplin's studio in Hollywood and ask the great star for work personally.
Chaplin had been Walt's hero, when Disney was thirteen he had won a two
dollar prize imitating the tramp on stage, not an easy trick. One time
Charlie Chaplin had entered a similar contest and lost.
Walt waited
all day on the sidewalk for Chaplin to come out but he never did. Disney
didn't know that Chaplin buried himself in his work, afraid to go home where
his 16 year old pregnant wife Lita and her mother were filling his mansion
with unwanted relatives, turning the Beverly Hills estate into the 1923
version of the Jerry Springer show. Or that the liberal Chaplin was
infuriating his United Artist partner the conservative Mary Pickford by
taking forever to finish his films, sometimes emerging from his editing room
with a long beard looking like Robinson Crusoe. Walt had his own concerns.
Once again, Walt used his makeshift press pass to sneak into
Universal Studios. This was exciting filmmaking! Men dressed like
cowboys pretending to shoot at each other and falling over. And a
castle. It reminded him of Paris where he had driven an ambulance for
the Red Cross after World War I. Curious, he walked over to question
some workmen about the structure. It turned out they were building the
Court Of Miracles set for The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, starring Lon Chaney.
Walt who remained star struck all his life, began looking around for the
famous actor who was known for playing characters who
were deformed,
sometimes armless and legless with incredible body contortions. Back in the
twenties there was a saying, "If you see something unusual on the floor,
don't step on it might be Lon Chaney." Suddenly Walt felt a tap on his
shoulder. Sitting on a horse behind him was the famous Austrian director
Eric Von Stroheim, known as the man you love to hate. Completely bald with a
monocle, riding crop and thick boots, which early film directors working in
the Hollywood hills wore to protect from snakes, Von Stroheim made an
imposing figure. "What are you doing here". Walt confessed he snuck in
and asked if there was any work. But he was talking to a man who used to
twist the arms of his leading ladies when he wanted them to
cry in his
films. "Get out now and never come back." Years later, when he had his own
studio, Walt went out of his way to give young people a chance to show what
they could do.
With no other prospects Walt decided to get back
into animation but this time he would get some help. One night in 1923 he
returned to the Veteran's Hospital where Roy was feeling better. Excitedly
Walt told his brother about his plans awakening other patients in the
ward," But I can't do it alone. I don't have your head for numbers." "I
don't know kid, cartoons that's risky. I was thinking about getting a safe
job at a bank, getting married. I mean I think your talented but. . ." "Ah
come on Roy, forget about a job. We'll work for ourselves. This is better
than a job, we can do this thing." "I don't know. . ." "Ah please." Walt
would not take no for an answer. Roy finally agreed to the new venture when
one of the soldiers in a nearby bed sat up and said, "Roy will you go with
him already so we can get some sleep!"
Want to hear more
stories? Stephen Schochet is the author and narrator of the audiobooks
"Fascinating Walt Disney" and "Tales Of Hollywood". The Saint Louis Post
Dispatch says," These two elaborate productions are exceptionally
entertaining." Hear RealAudio samples
at http://www.hollywoodstories.com.
|
