Disney Legend Ward Kimball was born on March 4, 1914 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Ward joined the Disney Studios on April 2, 1934. He spent about six months as an in-betweener, the entry-level position for male employees, before being promoted. When Eric Larson moved up in the animation hierarchy, Kimball took his place as assistant to Ham Luske.
Luske would often leave substantial bits of animation unfinished for his assistant Ward to complete.
“Ham gave me a lot of responsibility and that’s the way you learn,” Kimball recalled. “He’d give me little secondary things to animate in his scenes. I would do the drapery follow through. This is the way I learned the rudiments. He told me you couldn’t caricature until you can analyze and draw the real object, the real character.”
The shorts he first worked on as Ham’s assistant include Orphan’s Benefit (1934), The Goddess of Spring (1934), and The Tortoise and the Hare (1935).
Kimball soon became a full-fledged animator with his work on Elmer Elephant, a Silly Symphony released in 1936. However his real breakout performance was on a cello-playing grasshopper in Woodland Cafe (1937) that caught the attention of others at the studio.
He was assigned to two scenes in the upcoming animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Unfortunately, the dwarfs making a bed for Snow White and eating soup at the supper table to a musical number were cut from the final film. An angry Kimball was mollified by being assigned to work on the character of Jiminy Cricket for the next animated feature Pinocchio (1940).
Mary Elizabeth Lawyer (known as “Betty”) was born on October 14, 1912.
Ward Kimball and his wife, Betty, met when they both worked at the Disney Studios.
Betty was hired at the Disney Studio as a cel painter, but was soon assigned to also choosing colors and creating color models to guide the work of other painters. She developed a dry-brush technique to be used on cels.
She also provided live-action reference modeling for the title character in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs when the primary live-action model, Marjorie Belcher, was unavailable.
On August 18, 1936, the two married, and their marriage lasted 66 years until his death on July 8, 2002, at the age of 88 of natural causes. She had retired from the Disney Studios in mid-1939 to raise a family but always supported Kimball in all his endeavors, including forming a jazz band and buying a full sized locomotive engine for their backyard.
The two worked at the Disney Hyperion Studio where they met.
To keep employees there up to date on what was happening, the studio produced The Bulletin which was the Disney Studio inter-office studio employee newsletter.
It was one-sided 8.5-inches by 14-inches mimeographed sheets stapled at the upper left with usually two to four sheets for each weekly issue. These old issues are a treasure trove of insight into the personalities and the workings of the early Disney Studios.
The first issue of the Bulletin was printed January 6, 1939, and the last issue was printed April 4, 1941.
Like any office newsletter, it was filled with classified ads, birth and wedding announcements, information about upcoming events, things that were changing like people being promoted or moving to another office, inter-office sports news, announcements from Walt or Roy Disney for all staff and more.
The September 1, 1939 issue included “Shooting Begins on Pinocchio At Burbank”; a Bill Tytla drawing comparing him to his character Stromboli in Pinocchio; and the notice that Donald Duck got an award at the New York World’s Fair.
The June 14, 1940, issue stated that comic strip department was not accepting any more gag contributions, and that there were three new studio art exhibits to view including one featuring the art of musician Ollie Wallace.
Because only enough of these issues were printed for the people working at the studio and the information would go out-of-date quickly, they were usually discarded when the next issue appeared. I assume the Disney Archives has a complete set but I don’t know of any private collector who does. I only have a small handful.
Because it came out weekly, the editor always needed material and sometimes resorted to filling the space with a short glimpse of someone working at the studio.
In the Vol. 1, No. 22 issue dated March 21, 1939, the editor had Kimball write his own brief biography knowing it would entertain the readers since Ward already had the reputation of being a jokester.
There are many interviews with Ward Kimball out there, including a couple done by me, but one of the things that made Kimball a fascinating interview subject was he always had new information for every interview. Kimball could talk knowledgeably about everything from animation to jazz music to UFOs.
Kimball wrote his own biography for an issue of the Studio's Bulletin.
I recently obtained a copy of this issue for my collection and thought readers might enjoy Ward’s own quirky look at the highlights of the first twenty-five years of his life.
Ward Kimball’s Personal History
1914: I was born March 4, 10 p.m. in Minneapolis, Minn., Mercy Hospital.
1915: Any other baby would have looked the same.
1916: Baby carriage plus W.K. and teddy bear broke loose on steep Nicolet Avenue—overturned and dumped W.K. under a lawn sprinkler—pneumonia
1917: Uneventful
1918: Mother told me that my Uncle Pierre was “Fighting the Battle of Paris.”
1919: Muskogee, Oklahoma – A shed rat bit the little finger on my left hand.
1920: Grandmother Walrath took me back with her to Minneapolis. Here I entered the newspaper game—publishing the little Minneapolis Journal. The little Journal was hand-printed on Hotel Hastings’ stationery and boasted a subscription list of three persons. An editorial, funny cartoons, and ad section to edit was no lazy man’s task.
1921: Same as 1920.
1922: In Loring Park one day, a roughneck kid hit me in the back of the head with a rock-filled snowball. I still don’t like snow.
1923: We moved to Ocean Park, California. I slept all the way west in an upper berth with my little brother and sister.
1924: An auto tire I was rolling gathered too much momentum and crashed into a “T” Ford, overturning it and scattering Ford parts all along beach speedway. (They still don’t know who started the tire.)
1925: I flunked the fifth grade and got the measles.
1926: With an 8 ½ foot kite, Ward Kimball won first prize in a Glendale kite contest. Also a first place for the best decorated bicycle…a red, white and blue affair called “Spirit of Glendale.” This was a year of artistic achievement.
1927: Uneventful.
1928: I made $1 an hour smudging orange groves.
1929: Saw me finishing up my W.L. Evans correspondence in Cartooning. I graduated with full honors and a gold sealed diploma. (When things are going tough for me in sweatbox, I need only to produce this document to restore law and order.)
1930: My mother dyed my bell-bottom corduroy pants two tones of purple.
1931: I learned to play the trombone the world’s most beautiful musical instrument.
1932: I fell in love with a Santa Barbara millionaire’s daughter named Helen Mufflefogg. Her name was stronger than her love, so a broken heart resulted.
1933: The Santa Barbara Police watched me for two weeks on suspicion of peddling dope. I found out later that I had been observed passing very close to a known dope fiend who used to hang around the art school. My pasty complexion and black turtle-necked sweater didn’t help matters any.
1934: April 1st—I started to work at the Walt Disney studio. I wore a green eye shade and carried double thermos lunch box.
1935: They told me I could still work here if I would throw away the eyeshade.
1936: Ham Luske met Betty L. of the Ink and Paint Department and introduced her to me. After that was over, I married her.
1937: Found me still married and still working for W.D.P.
1938: Same
1939: We purchased a lens cap, an electric clock and a locomotive.
He learned that the Nevada Central Railroad has a vintage 1881 Baldwin 2-6-0 steam locomotive engine for sale and, of course, purchased it.
Ward Kimball tells in his “autobiography” that he flunked fifth grade, learned to play to trombone and once worked at smudging orange groves.
Friends and family helped restore the purchase and it was renamed the “Emma Nevada” after a famous opera star of the late 1880s. Adding track and a restored coach car from the same time period, the layout in the backyard was dubbed the “Grizzly Flats Railroad” and was first fired up in 1942.
Naturally, I was very excited and pleased to be able to find this “lost” insight into Ward Kimball especially since, like all Kimball pieces it included some information I had not previously known, but the three-page issue was filled with a few other treasures, including a short biography of animator Lee Morehouse, who is mostly forgotten today.
“Lee Morehouse was born in Garvanza, California, which now is merely a province of South Pasadena. Lee has three sisters, one of which he is only 10 minutes older than, because she is his twin.
“Lee’s artistic past began at the tender age of 8, when he drew the most magnificent airplanes and boats. At 12, he was copying Jiggs and Maggie, and at 15 his first original cartoon was published in the high school paper.
“After this ambitious start in life, Lee went to U.S.C.
“The carefree days in college being over, Lee spent a whole summer hunting a job in Catalina.
“Lee says that he has known Fred Moore for nigh onto 12 years, and that he used to collaborate with Fred on comic strips for the Junior Times. In fact, Lee says ‘I knew Fred when he wrapped toilet paper for Ralph’s at $10 a week’.
“Fred had been at Disney’s about three years when he suggested to Lee that perhaps there might be a spot for the Morehouse talent. So in came Lee with samples, and now he’s an animator in the annex. He’s got a three months old animator at home.”
Morehouse was born July 18, 1911 and died October 7, 1997 (age of 86) Morehouse’s Disney animation credits include the following:
1939: Society Dog Show, The Hockey Champ, Donald’s Cousin Gus, Officer Duck, The Autograph Hound
1940: Donald’s Dog Laundry, Mr. Duck Steps Out, Put-Put Troubles
1941: Chef Donald
1942: Donald’s Snow Fight
1948: A story credit for Inferior Decorator, with Bob Moore
Morehouse, Ham Luske, Dick Lundy, Fred Moore, and Herman Schultheis rented living space at a group of cottages in the Los Feliz neighborhood, that resembled the Seven Dwarfs cottage in the Disney animated feature, because the location was close to the Hyperion Studio.
Pretty cool, but there is even more in this issue, including Roy O. Disney listing four Los Angeles surgeons who were willing to perform operations in accordance with the fee schedule set forth in the Disney Group Hospitalization and Surgical Plan.
“Each physician is a fully qualified surgeon and each is highly recommended.”
There was also a listing of the comic strip gag awards that would be made on March 27,1939: Ralph Hulett for contributing the gag for the Donald Duck daily April 11, 1939; Bette Miskimin for a gag for the Donald Duck daily April 21, 1939; and Fred Schlatter for a gag for Mickey Mouse Sunday May 14, 1939.
People working at the studio in any department could make some extra cash by submitting gags for the animated cartoons and for the comic strips, although this practice seems to have stopped around 1940.
“All comic strips gags should be sent to Inez Henderson at Vine Street”.
The Mimeograph Department moved out of Room 132 so that it could be converted into a sweatbox, officially dubbed “Projection Room Five.” According to the Bulletin: “It is reported that the room is ideally suited for its new duty as it has no ventilation whatsoever.”
For me, one of the high points was the announcements including:
“Typewriter for Sale. Does anyone want a typewriter? A friend of a friend told me a friend of theirs had a Remington of some sort or other for sale cheap. I’ll tell you who to call but don’t get me mixed up in it. Frank Thomas Rm. 413”
Thomas, of course, went on to be one of the fabled Nine Old Men.
“Exposure Sheet of Scene 14, R.X. 1—SORCERER’S APPRENTICE was taken from the blow-up machine on Thursday night. Please return to John McLeish, Room 130.”
McLeish is probably best known by animation fans as the serious narrator in the Goofy “How To” shorts like How To Ride a Horse but he was an animator and story artist at the Disney Studio in the 1940s including working on the “Rite of Spring” segment in Fantasia (1940).
That’s a lot of interesting stuff on three pages. I think a fascinating book could be produced reprinting a collection of The Bulletin with annotated commentary, so readers could better appreciate some of the entries, but I have been told repeatedly that there does not seem to be a large audience for a historical look at early Disney animation.
