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663

Walt Disney

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:20,000.00 - 25,000.00 USD
Walt Disney

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Auction Date:2011 Sep 14 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Signed book: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. First edition. NY: Harper & Brothers, 1937. Hardcover with dustjacket, 9.5 x 13, 79 pages. Boldly signed in fountain pen on the title page “Walt Disney.” That page, the first free end page, and the last free end page are also signed in ink by 51 of the 64 people officially credited on the movie, and includes six of the nine men later referred to by Disney as the ‘nine old men’ —Les Clark, Milt Kahl, Ward Kimball, Eric Lawson, Woolie Reitherman and Frank Thomas. In addition, it includes character designers Albert Hurter and Joe Grant, art directors Charles Phillippi, Terrell Stapp, McLaren Stewart, Harold Miles, Gustav Tenggren, Ken Anderson, Kendall O’Connor, and Hazel Sewell and supervising animators Ham Luske and Vladimir Tytla. Other signers include Joshua Meados, Ben Sharpsteen, Otto Englander, Dick Rickard, Grim Natwick, Fred Spencer, Bill Roberts, Robert Stokes, Wilfred Jackson, Art Babbitt, Al Engsten, Dick Lundy, Webb Smith, Ted Sears, Larry Morey, Marvin Woodward, R. B. Martsch, Leigh Harline, Maurice Noble, Stan Quackenbush, Merle L. Cox, Samuel Armstrong, Claude Coats, and George Rowley. Light wrinkling to the paper on the front cover, edge wear, corner dings, and some faint toning to the pages, otherwise fine condition.

Accompanied by a 1938 RKO Radio Pictures International Convention program and menu, as well as a typed letter from the European general manager of RKO Radio Films International, Ltd. to Otto Sonnenfeld, RKO distributor for Czechoslovakia, that reads in part, “We, who have our headquarters in Paris, welcome you and are sincerely grateful that RKO Radio’s first International Sales Convention abroad permits us to be your host. Needless to say ‘Paris is yours’ and we are desirous of making your visit as pleasant as possible.”

The idea to bring Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs—the first full-length cel-animated feature film in motion picture history—to the big screen began in 1934, when Disney assembled a group of animators and unveiled his ideas. Nearly 750 artists were employed throughout the creative process, many of the best people in the genre, resulting in the first animated feature in color and the first in a long line of Disney animated classics. The film premiered on December 21, 1937 at the Cathay Circle Theater in Hollywood. At the end of the showing, the audience—packed with celebrities—rose to its feet and cheered.

As a promotion for the 1938 RKO Radio Pictures International Convention, Disney had copies of the book Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, published by Harper and Brothers in 1937, brought to the his studios, where he and 51 of the principal creators of the film signed them as gifts for the prospective distributors. Disney signed boldly at the bottom of the title page and instructed the animators to sign on the title page and on the front flyleaf, with this example one of only three still known to exist.

Amazingly, this convention...and Snow White...can also be credited with saving the life of Sonnenfeld, who was Jewish! When he returned to Nazi-dominated Czechoslovakia, the distribution contract he secured for Snow White allowed him to leave his homeland and gain entry to British-controlled Palestine with a document known as a capitalist certificate, recognizing him as the RKO Pictures distributor for Palestine. In later years, Sonnenfeld and his wife credited the RKO convention and the success of Snow White with saving their lives. It is believed that most of the special copies of this book that were shipped to Paris never left Europe and were destroyed during World War II. A remarkably rare collection, not only for the prominent signatures and paperwork, but for the role these items played in saving a human life from Nazi tyranny!
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