Disney's Snow White Goes Through Auckland

Radio Record, 9 December 1938, Page 34

Disney's Snow White Goes Through Auckland

Bu

J. Gifford

Male

®@ She’s a wisp of a girl, brunette, slim, petite and about 95Ilb. in weight. She has a_ piquant flashing prettiness, and a voice that is crystal clear’ and very musical. You might almost think it belonged to a little girl of 11 years of age. @ It is a remarkable voice, and it is known to the world as the voice of Snow White. @ In ordinary life it belongs to 22-year-old Adriana Caselotti, whose chief claim to fame at the present moment seems to be not that she is the voice of Snow White, but the fact that she is suing Walt Disney for 200,000 dollars. HE passed through Auckland a few days ago on the Mariposa, on her way to Australia for ten weeks of personal appearances, and it was on the Mariposa that I met her and heard the story of her chance rise to anonymous stardom. It was very early in the morning, and the Mariposa had just rounded North Head when tf boarded her from the Customs launch, so it was with « certain amount of trepidation that: I knocked at Snow ‘White’s cabin such a-long time before breakfast. '"T won’t be haff a minute," said the voice-of Snow White.

And while sleepy passengers hung over the rail catching their first glimpse of Auckland in the morning sun, we sat in a lounge and chatted:

it was four years ago that Disney began preparing for "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," and naturally, since the film centred round her, the first thing to do was to find a Snow White.

One hundred and fifty girls were tried out, the main qualification being a singing and speaking voice of uniform childlike lightness. The choice of 18-year-old Adriana Caselotti for the-part came about this way. Disney was discussing the problem with her father, Guido Caselotti, who is a fairly wellknown teacher of singing in Hollywood, and, as any schoolgirl would, Adriana was listening in on an extension phone. "Try me," she cut in. And Disney tried her. Exhaustive Trials UT the first trial was by no means the last. For a whole year she had to submit to exhaustive trials. Little scenes were rehearsed time after time; countless experiments were made. Then, the staff, studios and . whole organisation having been enlarged, production commenced. Contrary to what some people imagine, the first step was the recording of dialogue and songs. Animation came afterwards. What Adriana teok part in was, in effect, a radio play. Disney doesn’t give billing to the people who provide the voices for his characters, maintaining that it tends to destroy the filusion of unreality in his cartoons. But seeing’ "Snow White" will shortly be released throughout New Zealand, it may be of interest to tell you who [i

some of the voices are In real life. Prince Charming is Harry Stockwell, well known in radio; the Queen (and the Witch) is Lucille La Verne, stage and screen veteran. Now the dwarfs: Sneezy is Billy Gilbert, screen actor, who sneezed all day long while artists copied his expressions, but whose reallife sneeze is a very tame affair; Bashful is Scott Matraw, stage actor whose most famous role is that of Ko-Ko in "The Mikado"; Doc is Roy Atwell, American radio star; Happy is screen actor Otis Harlan, first man to sing "Alexander’s Ragtime Band"; Dopey ("he -ean’t talk none, he never tried’) is Eddie Collins; Grumpy and Sleepy are both Pinto Colvig, who has also been the voice of Pluto, Goofy and the Big Bad Wolf, and wrote the words of "Whose Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" and "The World Owes Me a Living. " Trouble: With Lines THE. two years taken to make the film wére necessitated, Snow White told me, partly by the long, tedious work of animation, partly by rehearsals and endless repetition. and experimenting with dialogue. The day she commenced work, the first line she was given to say was, "Oh, what a cute little house." But. she persisted in saying, ‘Oh, what a cute li’) house," and, after eight months of trying to cure her of that "li'l" Disney had the line changed to "Oh, it’s adorable." Similarly, she was unable to break. herself of the habit of saying "Why, Grumpy, I dint know you cared," so it was changed to "Why, Grumpy, you do care." Production of "Snow White" finished, Adriana made personal appearances at many release centres throughout the U.S., and also did a lot of radio work. She has a pleasant coloratura soprano voice, and sings anything from light songs to opera. She has a background of music in her family. Her mother sang in the Royal Opera House in Rome, and her sister, Louise Carmen, also sings. The Lawsuit HER lawsuit against Disney Adriana discusses quite frankly.. It all arose, she explains, from Disney making records from the sound track

of the film, and she claims that this is a violation of her contract. Prince Charming is also suing Dis-ney-for a mere 100,000 dollars. Adriana has the greatest regard for Walt Disney in other respects, and found him very agreeable to work for. But she points out that although "Snow White" eost 1,600,000 dollars to produce, it has netted 10,000,000 dollars already, and she thinks Mr. Disney might have spared her a little from the recordings. About her future, Adriana is rather uncertain. After her 10 weeks in Australia she may be coming across to New Zealand, or she may be hurrying back to the United States for her lawsuit. After that she will probably be concentrating on radio work. In. spite of her youth, she has Hollywood shrewdly appraised, and has no illusions whatever about that city of broken hearts. it’s 96 per cent luck that gets you into pictures she says (as

many others have observed before her). She herself got her big chance almost entirely by luck. She is going to take as much as she can out of Hollywood, and then never again attempt to storm its citadels. s