2319

IL - Chicago,Cook County - c1912- c1918 - Correspondence from the O-Zell Company

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Disneyana Start Price:7,500.00 USD Estimated At:15,000.00 - 25,000.00 USD
IL - Chicago,Cook County - c1912- c1918 - Correspondence from the O-Zell Company
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The Ruth Disney Archive
Walter Elias Disney 1901-1966
This archive represents the earliest Disney family material ever offered at public auction to our knowledge. This wonderful archive was released as part of a settlement agreement between Ruth Disney Beecher (Walt’s younger sister) and Collector’s Exchange of Oregon 1975. Their provenance from the Disney family is thus indisputable. The archive contains material issued to many different Disney family members, and especially marks an important portion of Walt’s father Elias’ career when Walt was a teenager.
Elias Disney, Walt’s father, operated a delivery route for the Kansas City Star and Kansas City Times Newspapers. Walt and possibly his siblings helped deliver newspapers.
Elias became interested in the O-Zell Company in Kansas City about 1912 when Walt was about 11 years old. He began buying stock, putting much of it in his family member’s names, including Walter’s through at least 1918. Elias joined the company part time at first, then later full time. There is a distinct possibility that family revenue gained from work at the O-Zell Company gave Walter his first needed grub stake. It’s unknown what happened to the company in later years.
Walt began a studio to produce animated films called “Laugh-O-Gram”. By 1923 he and his crew had made two films Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Jack and the Beanstalk. Working from his Kansas City studio Disney was at a decided disadvantage. Hollywood was developing as a filming center and he was too far away and underfunded to get noticed by the up and coming Hollywood power houses. He and his studio began working on “Alice’s Wonderland” that year but the lack of funding ended his business stint in KC, all well documented in Walt Disney’s Missouri (Burnes et al, 2002.)
It was in Kansas City that Disney befriended a mouse he found in his bottom desk drawer and named him Mortimer. Disney’s wife later suggested changing the name to Mickey, as he became the repeated subject of Disney’s imagination.
Walt’s “creative genius” was soon to explode. He bought a train ticket to Los Angeles that year, 1923, finished “Alice” and was immediately noticed by Hollywood. That was his launching pad into eternity.
This archive offers a glimpse into Disney’s early life with his father as part of the O-Zell Company as well as a magnificent early signed sketch perhaps done as early as 1920.

This correspondence consists of approximately 42 items; These are letters, receipts and contracts to and from Elias Disney. Several are notices to the stockholders. These items are for the very serious collectors, who are aware that Walt Disney was not only a stockholder in the O-Zell Company at the age of 15, but that he was employed there "part-time" later; and that Walt Disney's father, Elias Disney, bought heavily into stock of The O-Zell Company. Correspondence praises Elias, then asks him to see what he can do with the "Star", and if it was possible to raise money ($3,000) by means of a loan, which he complied. Many documents are signed by Elias Disney. A complete detailed inventory available upon request.