Brothers Walter Elias Disney and Roy Oliver Disney found Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio on October 16, 1923. The studio is in the rear of a small office occupied by Holly-Vermont Realty at 4651 Kingswell Ave. near Vermont Ave. in Los Angeles. Rent is $10.
Walt Disney has come to Hollywood from Kansas City after his first company, Laugh-O-Gram Films, goes bankrupt. One of Disney’s Laugh-O-Gram features is Alice’s Wonderland in which a young girl visits a cartoonist’s studio where the cartoons come to life. Afterwards, she dreams she visits “Cartoonland.” (Guess who plays the cartoonist?)
Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio is created after Margaret J. Winkler, the first woman to produce and distribute animated films, views Alice’s Wonderland and commissions a series of “Alice Comedies” at $1,500 per reel. Two years later, Disney hires Lillian Bounds as an ink artist and secretary at the studio. They marry later the same year. Mickey Mouse is born in 1928.
TOP Photo: Walt Disney shows Disneyland plans to Orange County officials in December 1954. Photo Courtesy: Orange County Archives (CC BY 2.0)