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Walt arrived in Hollywood in 1923 with a print of Alice and $40. Brother Roy had $250 in the bank. They became partners, got a $500 loan from an uncle, set up a studio in a garage. On the strength of Alice, they got an order from M. J. Winkler, a small Manhattan producer and distributor, for a cartoon series. Oswald The Rabbit was the central character. This Disney series lasted two years. Then, when Mr. Winkler could not agree to stepping up Oswald's production costs, Walt Disney abandoned both of them.
The breakup with Winkler occurred in New York. Day or so later, riding back to Hollywood, Walt Disney conceived Mickey Mouse during the celebrated sleepless night in the upper berth. Mickey's first adventure found no takers. The second. Plane Crazy, was shelved, but the third, Steamboat Willie (the first with sound), was a great success in Manhattan in 1928. Plane Crazy was brought up to date, released shortly before the parent of the Silly Symphonies, Skeleton Dance, and Mickey was off to fame, if not immediate fortune. Disney, aware of the complications of distributing the pictures himself, entrusted them to an independent distributor. When a batch of 21 delivered by January 1930 netted him only $1,000 profit, he turned to Columbia Pictures. Two years and 69 releases later he shifted to United Artists, where his products were the only short subjects distributed.
The four years with United Artists was the period of Disney's great artistic, technical and material expansion. He got into color (first with Flowers and Trees), opened up an amazing and delightful field of story possibilities when he cunningly amplified and filmed the nursery legend of the Three Little Pigs. Materially the Disney firm also waxed notably. In 1934 a Mickey Mouse cost about $27,500. The plant was worth $150,000 and 200 people worked there. It now costs about $50,000 to make a Disney one-reeler and 650 people are kept busy on the $800,000 Disney lot in east Hollywood. From film rentals, Mickey Mouse toys and comic strips, the Disneys will gross considerably more than $2,000,000 this year. But the Bank of America, Hollywood's perennial banker, has a note for $1,000,000 loaned for Snow White, which, to become a Disney asset, must gross at least $2,500,000.
All these money matters are in the hands of Brother Roy. Just how good a businessman Roy has turned into is not yet known. The Disneys have never pocketed their profits. The responsibility for that, however, would seem to rest with Brother Walt, who insists on spending more and more each year for a bigger and better staff, more elaborate technical apparatus to polish and refine his product. Like Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn, he is interested in the profits of his pictures largely because they bring him money to buy better materials to make better pictures.
But Brother Roy has the reputation of being a hard bargainer. Last year when United Artists insisted on future television rights to Disney products. Roy went to RKO Radio, drove a bargain that was almost too good to be true. RKO underwrites production costs; takes less than 30% of the gross. To the Disney studio, this set-up means guaranteed independence of bankers, more freedom for Walt in his pioneering ventures. His next full-length feature will be Pinocchio, replacing the scheduled Bambi. Meanwhile he expects to carry on with his regular quota of shorts.