海角大神

The unheralded women of the Disney Studios

In 鈥淭he Queens of Animation,鈥� Nathalia Holt takes a fascinating look at the women behind Disney classics like 鈥淐inderella鈥� and 鈥淏ambi.鈥�

A young woman hurries up to a soundstage building, and a security guard interposes himself. 鈥淪orry, ma鈥檃m, this is a story meeting,鈥� he tells her. 鈥淩estricted entry.鈥澛�

鈥淚鈥檓 a writer here,鈥� she explains, a bit puzzled, 鈥渁nd I鈥檓 supposed to attend these meetings.鈥�

鈥淲omen aren鈥檛 admitted to the story meetings. It鈥檚 men only,鈥� the guard tells her, dismissing her by looking away.聽

鈥淣o, no, you鈥檙e mistaken. I鈥檓 a new hire, and I should be in there,鈥� the woman tells him, getting more and more angry and finally putting her foot down. 鈥淚鈥檓 going in now. The meeting is starting and I need to be a part of it.鈥�

The young woman was Grace Huntington, one of the stars of Nathalia Holt鈥檚 new book 鈥淭he Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History,鈥� a bolt of pure reading delight that outdoes even Holt鈥檚 utterly winning earlier book 鈥淩ise of the Rocket Girls.鈥� This new book tells the backstage story of the women who worked at Disney during its earliest years and first heights of glory, indeed who themselves pushed it to those heights. It concentrates on five such women: Grace Huntington, Bianca Majolie, Retta Scott, Sylvia Holland, and especially Mary Blair, and through their stories, invaluably researched and assembled here, our author gives readers a look at the women who gave shape to so many of their childhood memories.聽

Bianca Majolie, who had attended the same high school as Walt Disney, was working in art direction at J.C. Penney when she saw 鈥淪teamboat Willie.鈥� She sent Disney a letter, seeking career guidance and assuring him, 鈥淚鈥檓 five feet tall and I don鈥檛 bite,鈥� along with a cartoon she had drawn. As Holt tells the story, 鈥淲alt expressed regret that Bianca didn鈥檛 bite and then invited her to send him her comic strips so he could assist her.鈥� Majolie was eventually offered a six-month apprenticeship in the story department, even though Disney鈥檚 story artists were all men.聽

Majolie, like dozens of other women who worked for Disney in the 1920s and 鈥�30s, did much of the grunt work behind the greatest Disney films of all time.

In a beautifully sculpted narrative of hurtlingly fast pace, Holt tells the stories of these women and their female colleagues, both in the Ink and Paint department and in the subsequent new airbrush department, which Disney picked Barbara Wirth Baldwin to lead 鈥� a circumstance that didn鈥檛 sit well with the men under her authority. 鈥淭here was grumbling among the male artists about having a woman as their leader,鈥� Holt writes. 鈥淏ristling at any display of femininity, they were especially vexed when Barbara insisted that her group wear hairnets to prevent a single strand of hair or flake of dandruff from falling onto the [animation] cels.鈥�

All of these women faced discrimination and most of them struggled to have their work recognized or even to receive credit. Ironically, in this book about pioneering women, Walt Disney stands out in these pages as a particularly vibrant character, the ultimate true believer in the enchantment of movies.

In a very real sense, many of the struggles of the Queens of Animation were also Disney鈥檚 struggles, and Holt draws readers deep into the fascinating specifics of those struggles. We learn that for the 鈥淲altz of the Flowers鈥� sequence in 鈥淔antasia,鈥� the women traced real snowflakes from photos provided by an elaborate outdoor setup connected to a microscope. We learn about the studio鈥檚 losing streak in the early 1940s, when it seemed as though 鈥渆verything they produced was destined for failure,鈥� with 鈥淧inocchio,鈥� 鈥淔antasia,鈥� and 鈥淏ambi鈥� initially failing to turn a profit. Disney needed a hit, and the question became: 鈥淗ow could they give Cinderella a sumptuous look at a budget price?鈥澛�

鈥淪tory development at Walt Disney Studios was a competitive sport,鈥� Holt writes, and that sport is still played today. Take, for instance, the story of Linda Woolverton, who was working on Disney鈥檚 鈥淏eauty and the Beast鈥� in the late 鈥�80s. She鈥檇 written a scene in which Belle is using push pins to mark on a map all the places she wants to explore, but when Woolverton saw the storyboards, the action had been changed by other writers: now Belle was decorating a cake in the kitchen. 鈥淚t was the kind of editorial change that made Linda lean over and literally bang her head on the wooden table before her in exasperation.鈥�

The fight goes on, then, but in 鈥淭he Queens of Animation,鈥� Nathalia Holt has told the story of indispensable trailblazers. It鈥檚 gripping, galvanizing reading.