More Alice

Here are a couple of magazine articles which helped to promote "Alice in Wonderland" for its initial release in July of 1951. They both show a fantastic variety of photos with Kathryn and other actors at work, performing scenes for the animators. Part of the French article features Bobby Driscoll, who would soon give Peter Pan his voice. Bobby also provided live action reference for that character.

There are still a few drawings of Alice by Milt Kahl I want to share with you.

Every possible angle of her head, every hand gesture is so beautifully worked out.

It's animated realism and appeal on the highest level.

Kathryn Beaumont

Her full name is Kathryn Beaumont Levine, and her friends call her Kathy.

I am very proud to be one of them. We recently got together to take a look at some animation roughs of the character of Alice from "Alice in Wonderland".

Many of you know that Kathryn gave her voice as well as live action reference to two iconic Disney characters, Alice and Wendy from "Peter Pan". We had a lot of fun studying the drawings, they instantly brought back memories of certain sequences, and how involved the live action filming was way back on a soundstage of the Burbank Disney Studio lot.

Because the situations Alice finds herself in are often surreal, the performance in front of the camera required almost acrobatic skills. Young Kathryn had to fall -attached to a harness- into Wonderland, she moved around sitting inside a miniature house and played croquet with an imagined flamingo.

I asked her if there was ever a moment when she was scared or felt unsafe. "Never" was the short answer.

She remembered that Milt Kahl showed her how rough animation was coming along, based on her performances. It was also Milt who invited Kathryn and her mother to spend their first  American Thanksgiving with his family. "That was a lot of fun" she recalls, "at the studio I worked with adults only, so it was nice to spend time with Milt's children Sybil and Peter, who were roughly my age."

Another interesting recollection came up about her costume for the filming.

Marc Davis wasn't satisfied with the way it was fabricated. The color was all wrong. Since the photostats were later printed in black & white,  only a certain grey would be beneficial for motion study. And the material was too light, so the dress had to be re done with a weightier fabric.

I find all those stories fascinating, and there isn't a lovelier person than Kathy to talk to about those magical Disney years.

I hope you'll enjoy the photos and the artwork.

Photos by Roger Viloria

Kathryn's adventures on the soundstage.

Milt Kahl shows a guest a gorgeous Alice drawing from one of his scenes.

Kathryn is examining Milt's work.

Don DaGradi, Milt, Kathryn and Clyde Geronimi reviewing a story board.

Kathryn with Milt Kahl and Ken Anderson on the set.

Time to visit Marc Davis and see what he is doing.

Milt Kahl draws over photo stats. For close ups: Keep the size of the head and shrink the body.

For long shots: Keep the size of the body and enlarge the head.

Makes sense to me.

More Milt drawings following:

Marc Davis

Ollie Johnston

Walt and Kathryn looking at Mary Blair's work for "Alice in Wonderland"

Kahl's Version of Captain Hook

This photo taken during production of "Peter Pan" is interesting to me.

You see Frank Thomas working on the scene with Captain Hook, when he is anxiously waiting for Tinker Bell to reveal the hiding place of Peter Pan. 

I don't know who the visitor is, but she seems to be admiring the Hook model sheet.

The drawings on that sheet are by fellow animator Milt Kahl, who had lobbied hard for the assignment to animate Hook. But Walt Disney wanted Milt to supervise the title character as well as Wendy, and it was Frank who ended up with the villain.

He remembered screening his first test scene for Walt and the crew. Milt was very displeased with the result, "That's a nothing scene" he touted. 

Frank was relieved when he heard Walt's comment, "No, there's something there, I want Frank to play with the character a bit more, he'll get it."

When you look at Milt's drawings below, you can detect his typical graphic abstractions. 

The jaw line is an almost inconsistent design, but it still works.

We'll never find out how Milt would have handled Hook in animation.

It doesn't matter, Frank Thomas did some of his best animation on Captain Hook.

The way he interacts with Smee or Tinker Bell feels to me like animated "acting fireworks".

A phenomenal character.

Disney is looking.....

Eric Larson sent me this terrific brochure in the late seventies, while I was still studying Graphic Design in Germany.

My jaw dropped, and my eyes popped out of my head when I browsed through the pages.

This was Disney NOW, people working on a variety of projects and looking toward the future of Disney animation. There was no way I was not going to try to be part of this…whatever it would take.

I was dead serious about this. I remember being a little intimidated by the sample sketchbook pages toward the end. They looked pretty awesome to me. I don't think I draw THAT well, was my thinking.

Mel Shaw's artwork for "The Hero from Otherwhere" and "The Black Cauldron" blew me away.

I had always been excited about Disney, but this brochure set me on fire.

I won't write captions for every photo, but you find talented folks like effects animator Ted Kierscey, story man Pete Young, animator Gary Goldman, Glen Keane, writer Steve Hulett, Disney CEO Ron Miller, Tad Stones, director/animator Don Bluth, Lorna Cook, Ed Gombert, John Pomeroy, Emily Juliano, Dave Spafford, Don Griffith (couldn't do a bad layout to save his life) with Dan Hansen, Eric Larson with Rebecca Reese, Frank Thomas with Ron Husband and a few others.

It takes my breath away just remembering and writing about this.