Sunday, February 24, 2008

It's Whom You Know...

I had not seen these before. It makes me think how much went on behind the scenes. These images are from the 1933 Stanford Quad, the Stanford University yearbook. The first image depicts the staff of the humor magazine The Chaparral: editor James Algar and manager Robert deRoos. Wait a minute--Algar we know as animator in the thirties, then director of True-Life Adventures. But deRoos...
Oh, yeah! "The Magic Worlds of Walt Disney" by Robert De Roos in the August 1963 National Geographic! That great 50-page article with the photo of Walt in his Disneyland apartment above the firehouse!
Could this be the same person? I bet it is!
(On page 183 of the article, he even quotes Algar!)

On the second photo we see the members of the Hammer and Coffin Society. And there, in a row, we find... Ollie Johnston, James Algar, Robert deRoos and Gilman Gist, who is described in an interview with Algar that can be found in Didier Ghez' Walt's People Volume 3.
He was the one who got Algar to apply at Disney's but did not get in himself. Algar later convinced Frank and Ollie to apply. Elsewhere in this yearbook we find lots of references to and pictures of Donn B. Tatum, former president and chairman of Walt Disney Productions...
Algar, deRoosGist, deRoos, Algar, Johnston
{Addition: Hire dates!
09/24/34 Frank Thomas
01/25/35 Ollie Johnston
07/23/35 Jim Algar
This seems to be inconsistent with Algar's story...]

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Kevin Koch says...

Hey, Hans, a quick question unrelated to this post -- I was trying to look back at some of the Action Analysis class notes, and none of the notes are available anymore. Any reason?

Friday, February 29, 2008 at 1:45:00 PM PST  

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