I keep running across this phrase. I know that he had a reputation as a dictatorial leader, and some say he used to fire employees on the spot. But I’m surprised at the number of key people who left Disney rather than try to continue working with him. Or the number of key people he simply couldn’t compromise with. And, ironically, the number that came back to him later. In most cases the words “falling out” are used, although no reason for the breakup is generally given. Nor for the return.
Ub Iwerks – definitely the most important of this group. A better animator than Disney, he arguably created Mickey Mouse. He certainly drew him better than Walt. they knew each other even before their days at that incubator of cartoon art, the Kansas City Film ad Company, having previously worked together at another ad company, and having founded their own short-lived company. he was Disney’s chief animator at the short-lived Laugh-o-Gram company and later at yet another venture that became Disney’s studio in California. after the Oswald the Rabbit debacle (Iwerls designed Oswald, too) and the birth of Mickey Mouse, thinghs seemed to be going well, but Iwerks was annoyed that Disney wasn’t giving him credit for his work. The two separated in 1930, supposedly after Disney asked him to draw Mickey for a fan. He started his own studio, making Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper cartoons, but they were never a big success. Some critics claimed he was never really funny, despite his technical excellence (He hired Chuck Jones as a Cel Washer). he worked for Warner Brothers for a time, and in 1940 rejoined Disney. He invented many processes, including the animation multiplane camera.
Pat Powers – An animation producer who got sound recording going for animation. Disney used his service for his much-vaunted Steamboat Willie (which wasn’t the first sound cartoon, but was arguably the first successful one). You’d think, with sound setting Disney apart from other cartoon studios, that he’d want to keep Powers on his side. But they had a falling out shortly after over distribution profits.
Pinto Colvig – The original Voice of Goofy. Also Pluto. And two of the Seven Dwarfs. And Practical Pig of the Three Little Pigs. But he, too, had a “falling out” with Disney in 1937, and left the studio. He went to work for Fleischer, where he was voice of Gabby in Gulliver’s Travels and in subsequent shorts, and did other voices for the company. He returned to Disney in 1940, and resumed Goofy. Later on he was the original voice of Bozo the Clown on Capitol Records. There’s a story that it was because of his departure that Goofy had non-speaking roles in theatrical shorts like “The Art of Skiing”, but most of these were released after Colvig’s return. (Although the gestation period of cartoons is long, so it could be they were started before his return)
Cornelius Vanderbilt Wood – The Man Who Built Disneyland. Disney and he clashed even before Disneyland was finished, but it has to be admitted that he gave his all in building the park – his marriage was one casualty. Nevertheless, his name has been expunged from the Disney histories as completely as those of Stalin’s opponents were from Soviet history. Wood went on to build other amusement parks around the country. Most of these failed within a decade (Freedomland in New York; Pleasure Island near Boston), but Six Flags continues.
