January 19 - Adriana Caselotti

On this day, in 1997, Adriana Caselotti passed away in Los Angeles, California. She was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut on May 16, 1916 as the second daughter in a family of musical Italian immigrants. Her father, Guido, was a vocal coach and her mother, Maria, sang with the Royal Opera Theatre of Rome. Even her older sister, Louise, would one day sing opera and give voice lessons. When Adriana was seven, her family returned to Italy so her mother could tour with an opera company. While there, she received her education at the convent of San Getulio near Rome. When the family returned to the States in 1926, her three year Italian adventure had been so immersive, she actually had to relearn English. Now located in Southern California, Adriana studied singing under her father and by 1935 was starting to appear in MGM films as a chorus girl. Then her father got a phone call that changed everything.

As production started gearing up on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs over at the Walt Disney Studio, the time came to hire voice actors. Knowing just how important the right voice was going to be in selling this picture to the audience, the company casting scout started calling local voice coaches, looking for leads on great voices. Guido Caselotti had gained a healthy reputation in the years since settling in Los Angeles and was near the top of the list. When Guido answered the phone, Adriana snuck into the other room and listened in on the conversation with the extension phone (those of you who've never experienced a land line before won't understand the gleeful deviousness of doing that). As the talk turned to any voices Guido might be able to recommend,  Adriana immediately piped up with an impromptu audition. Apparently it was good enough to get her an official one.

As the story goes, Walt would sit behind a screen while listening to the actors who came to try out for a role so he wouldn't be influenced by how they looked, not something terribly important in animation. Afterwards, Walt would like to say that when he heard Adriana sing, he was pretty sure he was listening to Snow White. Whether or not that was true, over 150 other women were given a shot before the role was offered to her at the ripe old age of 19. She was paid about $20 each day she came in to record dialogue and songs. After 48 days of working her magic in front of the microphone, she made a total of $970, the equivalent of $17,000 today.

Adriana always maintained that she had no real idea of what she was working on. She knew it was going to be longer than the usual cartoon short but was only thinking it would be twenty minutes max. It didn't really sink in until the film's gala premiere when, surrounded by Hollywood stars, the story took over an hour and twenty minutes to tell. A lot of people like to say something about the fact that Adriana never got a credit for providing the voice of the original Disney princess, but it's not like she was singled out to be slighted. No one received voice credit in a Disney film until the mid-Forties. What's less clear is whether or not Adriana's subsequent career was deliberately squashed by the studio or not.

Image copyright Disney

Shortly after Snow White hit the silver screen, Jack Benny reputedly wanted Adriana to appear on his radio show. When he asked Walt about it, Walt said no, he couldn't allow the illusion of Snow White to be spoiled. She would later be involved in a law suit against the studio, alleging she was owed part of the profits for the songs she recorded that were released as records. The case was dismissed. Adriana would only have two more roles in film following Snow White. In the Tin Man's song in The Wizard of Oz, she sang the part of Juliet, specifically doing the line "Wherefore art thou Romeo?". Then, in It's a Wonderful Life, she can be heard singing in Martini's bar while Jimmy Stewart is praying. And that was it. She tried to get an opera career going at one point but nothing ever came of it.

Now, was Adriana's complete lack of a career because her voice was too recognizable as Snow White's or was it because mean Uncle Walt wouldn't let her have one? Arguments could probably be made for both sides, but considering Adriana herself never (publicly at least) complained about her treatment from Disney (in spite of the lawsuit) and she continued to have an amiable relationship with the studio for years to come, I'd have to say it just wasn't in the cards for her. She would do plenty of publicity for Disney over the years, frequently wearing a familiar blue and yellow dress and gamely singing "I'm wishing." In 1972, she went on a Thanksgiving Day episode of The Julie Andrews Hour and sang a couple of duets from Snow White with Julie and later was a guest on The Mike Douglas Show as well.

Image copyright Disney

In 1992, when Disneyland was refurbishing their Snow White Grotto, Adriana stepped into the recording studio once more to make a new track of "I'm Wishing" for the wishing well. Even though she was 75 at the time, she still sounded the same. I remember seeing an interview with her once (probably from around that time) where she said the reason she could still sound like everyone expected her to after almost six decades was because she had always done Snow White in a falsetto. Whatever the reason, it worked (even if she kind of didn't). But, hey, if you can only ever have one role in your acting career, you can't do much better than the first Princess. Speaking of firsts, Adriana was made an official Disney Legend in 1994 (not even posthumously, for once) and was the first woman voice actor to receive the honor. And if that doesn't make you Happy, you must be Dopey.