Motion picture producer, animator and entrepreneur (1901-1966). An autograph album page signed by Disney with a pen and ink sketch of Mickey Mouse’s head. Oxford. Oblong 8vo. 2 pp.
$ 16,262 / 15.000 €
(90915)
An autograph album page signed by Disney with a pen and ink sketch of Mickey Mouse’s head. The album leaf is additionally signed by British Liberal Party leader Archibald Sinclair (1890-1970); British peer and Rudyard Kipling biographer Frederick Smith, 2nd Earl of Birkenhead (1907-1975); British peer who died in a plane crash enroute to visit William Randolph Hearst Terence Cunningham Plunket, 6th Baron Plunket (1899-1938); and on the verso, influential English conductor Thomas Beecham (1879-1961); Polish pianist Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982); British actress Violet Vanbrugh (1867-1942); American harmonica player Larry Adler (1914-2001); Australian baritone Peter Dawson (1882-1961); English conductor Adrian Boult (1889-1983); and English stage actress Lilian Braithwaite (1873-1948).
After several false starts, Walt Disney and his brother Roy started an enormously successful Hollywood production company featuring Walt’s cartoon character Mickey Mouse, whose name became synonymous with Disney’s. During the summer of 1935, Walt and Roy, accompanied by their wives, took a six-week grand tour through Europe. On June 12, they arrived in Plymouth, England aboard the French liner Normandie. A short film entitled “Mickey Mouse Presents: Walt Disney: A Visit to Britain,” shows footage of Disney on the ship’s deck looking out at the sea and then cuts to an animated sequence of Mickey Mouse traversing choppy waves on a raft. Near the end of the film, Disney is shown signing his autograph for a fan. Mickey Mouse was already enormously popular throughout Europe and during “very public visits to the London Zoo, Oxford, the Elstree film studios, the English countryside, lunch with H.G. Wells, a drive to Scotland, a visit to a children’s hospital, and other activities, the Disney’s” were mobbed by fans and reporters, (“Walt Disney’s European Tour in 1935: Germany, Austria, and Switzerland,” The German Way Expat Blog, https://www.german-way.com/walt-disneys-european-tour-in-1935-germany-austria-and-switzerland/). After leaving England, the Disney’s toured France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany where, notably, they drove near but did not visit Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, the very castle on which the one at Disneyland would be modeled decades later after a 1955 visit, (Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts, Burchard). Upon their return to California, the party was again mobbed by autograph seekers, but Disney compared the American variety favorably to those in England, stating “This isn’t bad. You ought to see ‘em in England. There they go after them on bicycles.” (“A Day in the Life: Disney, June 12, 1935,” http://www.michaelbarrier.com/Essays/Disney1935/Disney1935.html). Show through at the edges from tape affixed to the verso. With some staining, creasing and wear. In very good condition. A remarkably rare and desirable piece of animation and motion picture history..