Walt Disney once said that “it all started with a mouse”, but the Disney Company as we know it today was actually started in 1923 by a little girl named “Virginia”.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, on December 31, 1918, to a shy homemaker and a traveling salesman, Virginia began taking dance and dramatic lessons at age two and started to appear in advertisements. Walt Disney saw Virginia in a Warneker’s Bread advertisement and negotiated with her mother to use Virginia in an experimental live-action/animation film entitled “Alice’s Wonderland” for his failing Laugh-O-Gram studio. […]