1939:A short while before High School graduation, I had applied for a job with Walt Disney by entering a job-opportunity contest. I got the job!
Such as:
On my second day on the job, knocking over an India ink bottle, right onto my new bright green shirt. The head of the agency insisted that I remove and wash the shirt and hang it to dry from the only available outdoor place, the window flagpole opposite the Empire State Building.
In 1938, it was very strange to walk around such dignified premises without a shirt, and painful, since the lingerie models didn't even bother to notice.
First job after High School graduation:
$7 a week for the Ross Sign Company at 23rd Street, under the grimy Third Avenue El (elevated passenger trains). There I joined four or five other kids in a very Dickensian dust filled, ramshackle loft. The Ross', father and son, produced three dimensional wood and metal signs.
One of my chores was to paint the vise-locked wooden signs. I recall a time once, whistling "Whistle While You Work," as I painted away with great care.
Peripherally, I sensed and then saw the elderly, tiny Mr. Ross watching me, visibly disturbed. I made a greater effort at good work. He was still clearly irritated. Finally, he came over, took my left hand from my side, placed it on an unpainted portion of the locked-in sign and said, "Use both hands when you work and do NOT be so cheerful!"
That was my fifth day on the job. On the sixth day, we were asked to come in on the seventh day, Sunday, for a full day's additional work with no additional pay.
I quit.
1939:
A short while before High School graduation, I had applied for a job with Walt Disney by entering a job-opportunity contest. I got the job!
The letter from the studio instructed me to visit the Disney office at Rockefeller Center and pick up a $50 check to cover my bus fare to west coast.
Rockefeller Center, the 20th floor, my new suede jacket that bulged too much! Meeting the young, clean-cut executive who didn't seem to know what to make of this suede bulging emigrant from the East Bronx. At that moment I wanted to be far away. China, Manchuria, anywhere else!
The executive handed me a check.
I've since learned that this self-same executive now makes his home in Ireland. You may remember some of the things he's responsible for. The Manchurian Candidate for one, by Richard Condon.
A few days later, in the same bulgy suede jacket, I got to the Trailways bus station in New York accompanied by my teary-eyed mother. She handed me a small medicine bottle filled with Slivovitz (100 proof) Hungarian brandy, "..to help me warm the lonely hours on the long bus trip." Then she noticed an attractive young woman sitting by herself on the bus. Can you imagine how I felt when I saw Mom go up to the woman and ask her to be friendly with her son on such a long, lonely trip?
Oh, Mom, how could you know that you thereupon introduced me to a hooker!
On the four day, four night trip, my warm new traveling companion and I befriended another passenger, Jose', who was African American. We traveled together, dined together and got our first awareness of segregation together when we got to St. Louis.
There at a bus stop diner we were asked to sit at separate tables. Not fully understanding the reason for this, we chose, instead to dine at the counter bar. The proprietor was clearly upset and disappeared into the kitchen.
Next thing we knew we were surrounded by four huge gray uniformed cops! Under their hostile glares we hastily retreated back to the bus, lunchless! And then on we continued through the southwest.
Separate eating facilities!
Separate restrooms!
I remember now, with some wonder, how totally innocent Jose' and I were. Completely unaware that such problems existed. Maybe ten years before, in the 1920's but not in the modern America of 1939!
And then Disney! |  |
The people were so beautiful! I was in Fantasyland.
Passing one sound stage I remember hearing a mystically sweet new melody that would be part of a forthcoming feature. "When You Wish Upon a Star." The magical voice of Cliff Edwards (Ukelele Ike). On that sound stage there was a giant muslin and wood frame mockup of a fiddlehead on which an actor cavorted in simulation of Jiminy Cricket's future antics. This to be filmed to later assist the animators.
Some flash memories...
Deems Taylor, Leopold Stowkowsky, Igor Stravinsky, Walter Catlett...
That one day, in the inbetweener's room, a somewhat private place where twenty or thirty artists worked. Our desks and upright cabinets were adorned with ribald and outrageous depictions of the Disney characters in strange and unexpected involvements.
On that day a special guest, with an impressive entourage, was brought into the room. I remember her smiling, then glancing from side to side, spotting one of the larger, more unusual drawings, a lovely prone nude with Jiminy C. standing on her tummy and dipping his toe! A change of expression, her shocked eyes now straight ahead, her guides quickly ushering her through and out of the room. Wearing a dress rather than jeans, that was seventeen year old Gloria Vanderbilt.
Before this, while waiting for schooling and assignments, we new people were kept occupied with traffic duty, making deliveries and carrying messages. There was that time, while moving packages, I became aware of a photographer snapping my picture. Wherever I moved he kept taking shots of me. Undoubtedly publicity shots of studio workers in action, I thought. Wait till Mom sees me in some major magazine!
But then I turned... and there was Disney with a group of guests. The photographer wasn't interested in me, I just happened to be positioned between the camera and its subject each time. Embarrassed, I apologized, "Excuse me Mr. Disney!"
Disney glowered at me, but I mean fiercely!
When he and his people left, Mary W., who ran the little coffee and candy concession, asked me why I had done that.
Totally baffled, I asked, "Done what?"
She said, "You called him Mr. Disney. Weren't you told? You WILL call him Walt!"
Corralled behind the annex to the studio were two deer. We discovered they loved to eat cigarettes. I remember feeding them Sensation cigarettes, a very cheap brand, 15 cents a pack. Sometime later, after I'd left the studios, I learned the deer had died. I've carried a little bit of guilt with me ever since, wondering if my cheap cigarettes contributed to the deaths of Bambi and Feline.
While working at the annex I was, sometimes, the last to leave. One evening I was next to the last to leave. Ten steps out of the door, the one remaining artist called me back, ushered me into our studio and showed me a smoking waste basket which he had just doused. He raised one eyebrow and pointed to my pipe (A late teen-age affectation, not unlike this hairy old-age affectation.) After lighting my pipe, I had carelessly thrown the burning match into the basket...
What if I had been the last to leave that night?
The whole Disney experience, a mere three months, during which I was involved in a very minor way with work on Fantasia and Pinocchio. Years later after chalk talks at libraries kids would occasionally ask me, "Didn't you play the part of Pinocchio's father?" Kids really know how to be rotten...
Toward the end of the three month period I became homesick. I recall returning from the compulsory after work art classes one evening. On the bus, as usual, I worked away on my sketchpad. An elderly lady started a conversation with some compliments on my drawings. She reminded me of the actress Marie Dressler. We talked. I told her of my homesickness. She very kindly suggested I might like to visit with her if I was lonely and she gave me a slip of paper with her name and address.
What a nice, understanding person, even if her lipstick was a bit too bright for her age.
I never did visit her. Very shortly after, succumbing to homesickness, I was able to cancel my contract and returned to New York.
Now, I am a collector. I seldom throw anything away.
Some ten years later, rummaging through old stuff in a shoebox, I came across that nice lady's name and address. What a pleasant, warm memory! I turned the slip over, something I somehow had just not done before. There on the back side of the note was written...
$4.