Our regular correspondent, famed animator GRIM NATWICK, has recently written these very interesting personal reminiscences of WALT DISNEY. /4s always, we much appreciate and value his long-time interest in our magazine.
In the picturesque town of Marceline, Missouri there is a piece of carving that is warmly treasured by the citizens of the town. This carving is not to be compared with the PIETA by the immortal Michaelangelo, nor even with the THINKER of the French sculptor, Rodin.
Actually the Marceline carving is no more than three initials cut with a jacknife in the top of a school desk. The initials are W.E.D. They were carved by Walter Elias Disney when he was seven years old and a student in the Marceline School.
The early life of Walt Disney has been carefully documented. I shall try to relate what I remember about Walt during the years I spent working at the Hyperion studio from 1934 to 1938. The sensational "Three Little Pigs" had been screened in 1933. It was a history-making time in Hollywood, in animation, and in the life of Walt Disney.
No one ever really knew Walt—at least that has been a popular opinion. I once asked several animators how they would describe Walt in a single sentence. The reply was always the same: "W7alt could not be described in a single sentence." I thought of him as a man with a single purpose, a single wish, a single desire; whatever he did, it had to be done better than it had ever been done before. That is the way he felt about animated cartoons and possibly he had the same attitude toward his life in general.
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