February 23 - Legend of the Lion King

On this day, in 2004, Fluffy was hoisted for the last time as the lights went down on the final performance of The Legend of the Lion King in Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom of Walt Disney World. The show opened on July 8, 1994, just three weeks after The Lion King burst into theaters, replacing the Magic Journeys movie and was an instant success. A retelling of the movie, Legend was a mixture of really big puppets, a live performer and all sorts of theatrical effects including projections of clips from the film and filling the set with fog.

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The puppets used in Legend were designed and built by Michael Curry Design Inc. and when I say they were big, I mean it. The Adult Simba puppet was more than twice as tall as a lanky adult human and required five puppeteers to manipulate. The stage area was made much larger than the theater's seating area (the opposite of pretty much every other theater in the world) in order to accommodate their size. All the puppets were mechanical in design, meaning the operator squeezed what looked like a bicycle brake that was connected by cables to the puppet's mouth in order to open and close it. Other cables connected to the same handle allowed the puppeteer to move the head around, blink the eyes and so on. The size of the puppets meant that many of them were actually worn by the puppeteers via rigid harnesses that slipped over their shoulders and was safety strapped around their waists.

The puppets, also known as Humanimals, looked like they'd stepped right off the big screen and into the theater. Unfortunately, while they looked great, they were also kind of fragile. They just weren't designed to do thirty (or more) shows a day, seven days a week (but, really, what is?). The cable guts  would constantly wear out. Space constraints in the theater (as well as the obvious necessity of a finite budget) only allowed for two of each character to hang around. Even with a puppet 'hospital' directly off stage left and at least two technicians working all day, every day on repairs, it was extremely difficult sometimes to keep the show going. There were occasions when guests might see a show with only two out of three hyenas, for instance. It was truly through the speed and dedication of those puppet doctors that Legend ran as smoothly as it did.

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There was one character in the show that wasn't a puppet. Or, to be completely accurate, was only partially a puppet. Rafiki, the wise yet cheeky baboon (and narrator of the show), looked almost exactly like he did if you met him out in the parks, except for one big difference: his mouth opened and closed. For the first time in Disney history, a costumed character had what is known as an articulated head. Supposedly, the first time folks from the Jim Henson Company saw the new Rafiki in action, they were a bit mystified, especially since the performer had full use of both arms (if you ever look closely at, say, Big Bird, you'll notice one of his arms doesn't do a whole lot). A simple mechanism, hidden in the costume's glove, with a cord running up the sleeve to the head made the whole thing possible. Two fingers, one for each of Rafiki's lips, and a whole lot of practice was all it took to make guests gasp in delight at the sight of an actually taking character (it was especially effective since Rafiki was the star of the pre-show and the first thing guests saw in the show).

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Full disclosure time: I was lucky enough to be a part of the cast of Legend for two years in the late Nineties, performing the show over 1,800 times, a thousand of those as Rafiki. It was my first Disney show (and the reason I got a transfer to entertainment to begin with) and it was as much fun for me to perform as it was for people to watch. One of the milestones that was passed during my tenure was Legend's 50,000th performance, a number that was dwarfed by the end as the show ran for five more years. Incidentally, the Fluffy I mentioned at the beginning of this post was our nickname for the puppet of Simba and Nala's baby that Rafiki raised at the end of the show. No one knew that their offspring would be called Kiara when the show opened and by the time we did know, it was too late; Fluffy it stayed. If given the chance to ride the lift and hoist Fluffy one more time, I, like I suspect most of us who did it once upon a time, would do it in a Manhattan minute. After all, the show might be over, but the Legend lives on.

February 22 - Lea Salonga

On this day, in 1971, Maria Lea Carmen Imutan Salonga was born in Ermita, Manila, Philippines. The first six years of Lea's life were spent i the upper class City of Angeles (her father owned a shipping company). Shortly after the family moved to Manila, she made her professional debut in a Repertory Philippines production of The King and I. Two years later, she was playing the title role in Annie and by the time she was 17, had appeared in a dozen shows as varied as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Paper Moon and The Fantasticks. Just that would be enough to make Lea a Superteen but there is, of course, more.

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In 1981, Lea's ten at this point, she recorded her first album, Small Voice. It reached gold status. I don't know what you were doing at ten, but I was too busy watching Saturday morning cartoons to make my gold record (at least that's what I'm telling myself). The success of Small Voice gave Lea the opportunity to have her own musical television show, Love, Lea, from 183-85. After her show finished its run, she became part of the Thursday cast (different casts performed on different days) of the popular variety show That's Entertainment when it debuted in 1986. Now, you could be forgiven for thinking that one girl couldn't possibly do more. You'd be wrong but you'd be forgiven.

Somehow, around the stage shows and television gigs, Lea also appeared in Filipino films like Tropang Bulitit, Ninja Kids and Pik Pak Boom. Along the way she earned a FAMAS Award nomination (it's like a Filipino Oscar) and won three Aliw Awards (think of something like a Tony). She began opening for acts like Menudo and Stevie Wonder when they came through Manila. Then, at the age of 17, she released her second album, Lea, and it went multi-platinum. So what does a wildly successful Filipino actress/singer do for an encore? She becomes a wildly successful international actress/singer. Duh.

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To be fair, Lea hadn't intended on extending her career past her teens. She was a biology major at Ateneo de Manila University studying for a career in medicine when a new musical came along and changed her plans. The producers of Les Mis were mounting an update of Puccini's Madame Butterfly but had run into a major problem: they couldn't find a young Asian woman in all of England who could handle the demands of their show. They began a worldwide search, asked Lea to audition and she blew them away. She originated the role of Kim in Miss Saigon on London's West End in 1989 and I don't know of the British capitol has ever recovered. After two years of dazzling European audiences, Lea and her co-star, Jonathan Pryce, crossed the Atlantic to open the show on Broadway. All told, Lea won a Laurence Olivier Award, a Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award and became the first Asian woman to ever win a Tony for her performance in Miss Saigon.

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Lea became a Disney princess in 1992 (or at least the singing part of a Disney princess) when she sang for Jasmine in Aladdin.

And here we pause while I climb up on this soap box I just happened to find laying around. I can understand when you cast someone in a musical who has the star power you need to make a go of your picture but not the vocal chords, so you have someone who can sing, but can't necessarily act, take care of the soaring vibrato. What I cannot understand is when you hire a virtually unknown actor who can't sing to be in a musical and then relegate someone who can do both to half a role (or less depending on the spoken/singing ratio). The streets of New York (and Chicago and LA and any other place you can mention) are literally crawling with unknowns who can sing and act your socks off (and will be willing to do it for scale), so hire one of them for crying out loud. Because let's face it, while a whole lot of Aladdin fans know Lea sang it (and some of them already think she did the whole thing), how many of you can name the actress who spoke for Jasmine (without looking it up)? Exactly. It's Linda Larkin, by the way, and I'm not trying to disparage her performance, I'm just fed up with how things are done in general when it comes to casting musicals (don't even get me started on Russell Crowe).

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For the 1993 Academy Awards Ceremony, Lea teamed up with Brad Kane, the voice of Aladdin, to sing the Oscar nominated song A Whole New World (spoiler: it won). She returned to the Disney recording studio again in 1998 to provide (again) the singing voice for the title character in Mulan and it's 2004 sequel. She graciously continues to sing for both Jasmine and Mulan in video games, episodes of Sofia the First, and whenever else Disney is willing to cut her a check.

In the decades since Miss Saigon, Lea has basically traveled the world, giving concerts, earning awards for shows in London, Manila and the United States and releasing several more albums, only three of which went platinum (don't feel too bad though, another one also went gold). She's returned to Broadway several times, in 2002 as Mei-Li in Flower Drum Song, in 2016 as part of Allegiance with George Takei and, most recently, as Erzulie in the 2017 revival of Once on This Island. The 48 year old Superteen turned Princess turned International Sensation shows no signs of slowing down and I can't wait to hear where she turns up next. Happy Birthday, Lea!

February 21 - Hazel George

On this day, in 1904, Hazel Inez Gilman was born in Bisbee, Arizona. The details of Hazels personal life are a bit shaky. She told stories in interviews in the Nineties that seem to contradict everything we think we know, but since she was in her nineties at that time, we'll just go with the generally accepted narrative (not that either version is highly verifiable, but here goes). Hazel was still in Brisbee in 1917 to witness the Brisbee Deportations, a horrific event where the local mining company forced 1,200 striking workers onto cattle cars and dropped them off in the New Mexico desert two hundred miles away. It's not clear if Hazel's father was one of the miners that were deported, but her parents divorced and she moved to Southern California with her mother and brother soon afterwards.

Two things happened for Hazel in 1928. First she graduated as a nurse from the University of California, Los Angeles. Second she got married to an office manager, Emerald Robert George. A year later, she'd had a daughter, Deborah, and her little family was living with her mother, while she worked at LA County Hospital.

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In the early Forties, Hazel became the resident nurse at the Walt Disney Studio. She claimed she came on board during, and specifically because of, the animators strike in 1941, but it could have been as early as April 1940. She quickly became Walt's personal nurse as well, helping him mitigate the pain he still experienced from a 1938 polo accident. Hazel spent many afternoons in Walt's office, treating his injury and listening to him unwind from his day. She became one of his closest confidants and stayed loyal, never revealing very much of anything he ever told her. Supposedly one of chief complaints was his inability to play polo anymore and she suggested a new hobby, turning him on the trains. Walt wouldn't build his famed Carolwood Pacific Railroad over his wife's flower beds until 1949, so that story actually carries an air of plausibility.

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Hazel's husband died in 1944 and her daughter followed in 1947. At some point, she began a relationship with one the studio's house composers, Paul Smith (which will be become relevant in a moment). In the early Fifties, when Roy O. Disney was reluctant to commit company money to his brother's amusement park idea, Walt asked Hazel if she would be willing to invest some of her own funds. She was willing , and after convincing other employees to do the same, they collectively convinced Roy that maybe the park wasn't such a screwball notion after all.

The real twist to Hazel's story comes with the creation of the iconic Disney television show, The Mickey Mouse Club. The nurse from Arizona took on a pseudonym, Gil George, and became a lyricist to her companion Paul's composing. The duo wrote over 90 songs used in the series including Talent Roundup, Mickey Mouse Newsreel, The Wrong Syl La Ble and all the songs used in the Corky and White Shadow serial. Hazel also wrote most of the Doddism songs for host Jimmy Dodd such as Safety First and Beauty is as Beauty Does. Hazel and Paul went on to write songs for Old Yeller, The Light in the Forest and the Disneyland anthology show. Once Paul retired fro the studio in the early Sixties, 'Gil' also stopped writing lyrics.

Image courtesy Mike Sekulic

Hazel would stay on with the studio as nurse, at least as long as Walt was around. She treated her old friend right up to days before his death. And it was, again supposedly, Hazel who got Walt interested in cryogenics, starting rumors about the whereabouts of his remains that persist to this day (let's be clear: Walt was cremated and his ashes are in Woodlawn Cemetery; he's not coming back).

At some point Hazel stopped working at the studio but her connection to her old boss and company never really ended. Bob Thomas, Walt's official biographer interviewed her extensively beginning in 1975 as subsequent biographies have relied on those interviews for insight into Walt's mind. Throughout the twilight years of Hazel's life, Walt's daughter Dianne was a frequent visitor (as, oddly enough, was Michael Jackson, who had asked to be introduced to Hazel through Bob Thomas). On March 12, 1996, Hazel quietly passed away at a nursing home in Burbank, California. The woman who unlikely involvement in so many aspects of Walt's later life made her a veritable Forrest Gump of the Walt Disney Company was 92.

February 20 - Sandy Duncan

On this day, in 1946, Sandra Kay Duncan was born in Henderson, Texas. Growing up in nearby Tyler, Texas, Sandy began her professional career when she was just 12, earning $150 a week in a local production of The King and I. after spending some time at Lon Morris Junior College, a Methodist school in Jacksonville, Texas, she left the Lone Star State for the Great White Way. She enjoyed moderate success, appearing in a number of productions throughout the Sixties (including her first run of Peter Pan, playing Wendy), culminating in a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress (Musical) for 1969's short lived production of Canterbury Tales. Around the same time she did get some recognition (at least in California) for a humorous commercial she did for the United California Bank (now a part of Wells Fargo) and some national attention for a brief stint on Search For Tomorrow, CBS' long running soap opera.

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The beginning of the Seventies saw the beginning of bigger and better things for Sandy, even if a lot of them ended up having limited runs. She earned another Tony nomination, this time for Best Actress (Musical) for the 1970 revival  of The Boyfriend. A year later she starred in the film version of Neil Simon's play The Star Spangled Girl opposite Tony Roberts. Later that year, Sandy landed the lead in a CBS sitcom Funny Face, loosely based on the 1957 movie. With a prime time Saturday night spot right after All in the Family, the show had everything going for it, except two things: critics praised Sandy but dismissed the show and a tumor was discovered behind Sandy's left eye. Filming of Funny Face was put on hiatus while Sandy went in for surgery. The tumor turned out to be benign but she lost all vision on her left side. Contrary to popular belief, she does not have a glass eye. Since her left eye still tracked with her right one, the decision was made to leave it alone. Sandy made a quick recovery from her surgery, but it was too late for Funny Face. Even though she earned an Emmy nomination for her work, the show ended after just 13 episodes. Sort of.

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In the Fall of 1972, Sandy returned to television in a New and Improved version of Funny Face, now called The Sandy Duncan Show. The retooled show had essentially the same premise but a new cast (including Tom Bosley), new writers and a new time slot, on Sunday instead of Saturday. Once again, critics liked Sandy but hated the show. Without the strong lead-in of All in the Family, The Sandy Duncan Show also lasted just 13 episodes before being cancelled.

The rest of the decade saw Sandy appearing in several one-off productions. In 1976, she played Pinocchio in a musical adaptation on CBS that also starred Flip Wilson and Danny Kaye. She followed that up with an episode of The Muppet Show, starred in an episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies (as herself) and grabbed another Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Missy Anne Reynolds in Roots, a rare dramatic role. She ended the Seventies by returning to Broadway for her biggest show yet: another production of Peter Pan, but this time she played the title role, earning a third Tony nomination.

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Sandy joined the Disney family in 1970 starring opposite Dean Jones in the mostly forgettable comedy The Million dollar Duck. In 1974, she had a television special called Sandy in Disneyland and returned to the park for another special in 1976, Christmas in Disneyland. Then in 1978, she starred in The Cat from Outer Space, with Ken Berry and Roddy McDowall. But it's arguable that her best known Disney role (or at least the one that still gets regular viewings) came in 1981 when she was the voice of Vixey, Tod's foxy girlfriend who helps him survive in the wild, for The Fox and the Hound.

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Sandy's big television success finally arrived in 1987 on The Hogan Family, but it wasn't without controversy. The Hogan Family had started life two years earlier as Valerie, starring Valerie Harper. When Valerie was renewed for a third season, Harper wanted more money, was denied and walked out on the show. While negotiations continued, the feud with the network got ugly. Harper's character ended up being killed off, Sandy was brought in as a replacement and the show survived for four more seasons, marking the first time a show named after an actor continued on without its marquee name.

Since The Hogan Family ended its run in 1991, Sandy had kept busy with, mostly, a variety of stage performances. She played Roxy Hart in Chicago for two years, toured the country in a production of The King and I (as Anna this time, not one of the kids) and returned to Broadway in 2016 as Madame du Maurier in Finding Neverland. What else will the 72 year old spitfire do in her career? Only time will tell, but I can almost guarantee its perkiness will make you smile.

February 19 - Jeff Daniels

On this day, in 1955, Jeff Warren Daniels, was born in Clarke County, Georgia. After residing in his native state for a whole six weeks, Jeff's family moved north to Chelsea, Michigan, a small town the actor still claims as home today. Following high school, Jeff became part of the theater program at Central Michigan University. In the summer of 1976, he changed allegiances to Eastern Michigan University to be a part of their Bicentennial Repertory program. Marshall W. Mason guest directed the program and was impressed enough with Jeff to invite him to New York City to join the Circle Repertory Theatre.

Jeff has enjoyed a long and varied career on the stages of New York. After performing with Circle Rep during the 1977-78 season, he was part of the inaugural show, The Shortchanged Review, at Second Stage Theatre in 1979. He's been nominated for two Drama Desk Awards for two different Lanford Wilson plays, Fifth of July on Broadway and Lemon Sky off-Broadway. He's won an Obie Award off-Broadway for his performance in Circle Rep's Johnny Got His Gun and earned a Tony nomination for God of Carnage, a 2009 Broadway production that also starred James Gandolfini. A second Tony nomination came his way in 2016 for Blackbird.

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Jeff made the leap to the big screen in 1981 as part of the cast of Ragtime. He followed that up as Flap Horton in Terms of Endearment and by his third film, Woody Allen's 1985 comedy The Purple Rose of Cairo, he'd already earned a Golden Globe nomination. Another Golden Globe nomination came just a year later for Something Wild with Melanie Griffith. Dozens of films came after that with the two that he is arguably most remembered for being characters that are polar opposites: Harry Dunne in 1994's Dumb and Dumber and diner owner Bill Johnson in 1998's Pleasantville.

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Jeff joined the Disney family in 1990 as Dr. Ross Jennings in the horror comedy Arachnophobia, which was the first movie released under the Hollywood Pictures brand. His biggest Disney hit came six years later when he put his own spin on Roger in the live action version of 101 Dalmatians opposite Glen Close. Jeff's next contribution to the company was the disappointing sci-fi comedy My Favorite Martian in 1999. He also appeared in two films under the Miramax brand during the years Disney owned it, 2002's The Hours with Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman and 2007's The Lookout with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

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In more recent years, Jeff enjoyed a three season turn as Will McAvoy on the HBO series The Newsroom, earning himself a Golden Globe nomination, a SAG Award nomination and three consecutive Emmy nominations resulting in an Emmy statue on his mantle. His work the Netflix series Godless won him another Emmy just last year. He also returned to Broadway late last year as Atticus Finch in a new production of To Kill a Mockingbird. Theater not your thing? Maybe you'd prefer to listen to Jeff's musical stylings on one of his six albums or any of his frequent gigs, featuring songs he writes himself.

When he isn't earning Emmy Awards or Tony nominations, Jeff is writing plays for and performing with the Purple Rose Theatre Company which he started in his hometown of Chelsea in 1991. The non-profit troupe produces four shows each season, develops plays based on life in the Great Lakes region (like Jeff's own hit Escanaba in da Moonlight) and has an internship program that gives seven young adults every year the skills they need to succeed in the world of theater, all of it inspired by the time he spent decades ago at the Circle Rep. Happy birthday, Jeff, may you keep passing it on for years to come.

February 18 - Pat Fraley

On this day, in 1949, Patrick Howard Fraley was born in Seattle, Washington. In 1979, the same year he married his wife of 40 years, Renee, Pat began his career as a voice actor. His inauspicious debut was for a Scooby Doo animated movie, Scooby Goes Hollywood, and his credits are for Brother, Guard and Announcer (although they probably never met, Mel Blanc was in the same production as Man at Roller Rink, so Pat can at least say they did something together). Over the next several years, Pat continued doing various voices until his first recurring role in 1985 as Ace on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. That same year, he landed a gig as Hillbilly Jim on Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling, where he first met Brad Garrett, the voice of Hulk Hogan, who would become a lifelong friend.

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Two years later, Pat would become something of a phenom in the voice over world. Anyone who was a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series (and pretty much everyone who was of a certain age in 1987 is) needs to pull out a piece of paper and prepare for a pop quiz: name all 64 characters that Pat voiced on that series. I'll give you two to start, Fourth Goon and Third Goon, but you have one minute to name the rest.... and, pencils down. I'm not going to actually list all 62 of the rest but I will give you this impressive list: Krang, Casey Jones, Baxter Stockman, Slash, Napoleon Bonafrog, Zak (one of the Neutrinos), Sergeant Granitor and, in one season 3 episode, Shredder.

If you weren't a fan of TMNT (I'll just assume you weren't born yet) but have watched other Saturday morning cartoon fare, I can still pretty much guarantee that you've heard Pat's voice (and probably more than once). A short list of shows he did over the years: Garfield and Friends, The Tick, Ghostbusters, Bobby's World, The Mask: The Animated Series, Batman: The Animated Series, The Addams Family (Cousin Itt), Rainbow Brite (On-X and Evil Force), The Tom and Jerry Kids Show (Kyle the Cat), The Smurfs (Tuffy Smurf) and The Centurions (Max Ray). A long list of shows would practically be a catalog of every show from the Eighties through the early Aughts.

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Pat is no stranger to the Disney family either. He voiced a young Scrooge McDuck and Sir Guy Standforth on DuckTales, Gwumpki in Quack Pack, and Wildcat for TaleSpin. He provided various voices for Goof Troop, The Little Mermaid, Gargoyles, and Bonkers. On the big screen for Disney Pat's appeared in Tangled, Chicken Little, Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story 2 as all the additional Buzz Lightyears. He also filled in for Tim Allen on Buzz Lightyear duty on several video games, most of the talking Buzz merchandise and all of the Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin attractions currently at Disney parks around the world.

These days, Pat has mostly retired from doing active voice work (he is an septuagenarian now after all) and instead teaches up and coming new hopefuls how to channel their inner voices to become the next Mel Blanc or... well, or the next Pat Fraley for that matter.

February 17 - Ruth Clifford

On this day, in 1900, Ruth Clifford was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. After her mother died when she was just 11, Ruth and her sister were sent to St. Mary's Seminary in Narragansett. Four years later, they moved to Los Angeles, California and began living with an aunt who just happened to be a stage actress. Ruth's aunt got her work as an extra on the Universal lot, but she didn't stay in the background for very long. She earned her first screen credit in 1916, starring as Camille in Behind the Lines alongside the legendary Harry Carey (the legendary movie actor not the legendary Chicago Cubs announcer). Ruth became a bona fide star of the silent film era, playing leading roles throughout her twenties in films with names like As Man Desires, Brooding Eyes and The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln. Then Al Jolson came along and ruined everything with The Jazz Singer, Hollywood's first feature with synchronized sound.

Ruth was luckier than a lot of silent film stars; her career dwindled slowly instead of stopping abruptly. While she would appear in dozens of films over the next few decades, more and more of her roles would be uncredited and have names like Valley Woman or Maid. She still had powerful friends (she played bridge with director John Ford, for instance) but that didn't translate into meaningful screen time.

When the Forties rolled around, Ruth attended a performance of the Abbey Theatre Company when they made a stop in Los Angeles. She was impressed with them and joined the troupe, travelling around the country, starring in what she called classic Irish plays. As television began ramping up production in the Fifties, Ruth found a third career in commercials and making frequent appearances on shows like Highway Patrol in the last half of the decade.

Ruth became part of the Disney family in 1942 as the third major voice of Minnie Mouse. I say major because Walt himself squeaked out Minnie in her first several cartoons and then a woman named Marjorie Ralston voiced her for exactly one short. Marcellite Garner took over for almost a decade before handing the reins over to Thelma Boardman, who mostly brought Minnie to life on a radio program in the early Forties. Ruth became Minnie to Walt's Mickey (for a few pictures, at any rate) with the wartime Pluto short Out of the Frying Pan and into the Firing Line and continued until 1952's Pluto's Christmas Tree (considered a Mickey Mouse short, not a Pluto, apparently ownership matters). But don't think Ruth was replaced at that point. The Shorts Department basically stopped existing and Minnie Mouse wouldn't officially utter a new word until 1974 for a Disneyland Record's adaptation of A Christmas Carol (and would then become mum again until 1986).

While Ruth's acting career may have dried up in her later years, her popularity did not. She found a fourth career, of sorts, as a living link to Hollywood's past. Documentary filmmakers loved to talk with her about all her silent co-stars and the culture of Tinseltown before sound. Ruth lived in Sherman Oaks, California until 1987 when she moved into the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills. She lived there eleven more years, passing away quietly on November 30, 1998. She was 98 years old.

February 16 - James Baskett

On this day, in 1904, James Baskett was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. James planned to become a pharmacist after high school, but two intertwined circumstances got in the way of that dream: pharmacology school was more expensive than James could afford , so he began acting to support himself. The world of prescription drugs never stood a chance. He began on the stage in Chicago, Illinois, starting small but taking increasingly roles. He eventually moved to New York City, joining Bill Robinson's (better known as Mr. Bojangles) acting company. It didn't take long for James to establish himself as one of New York's leading black actors. In 1929, he appeared on Broadway with Louis Armstrong in a musical revue called Hot Chocolates that ran for over 200 performances. Starting in 1932, he began appearing in films being produced in New York, utilizing mostly (if not all) black casts, like Harlem is Heaven, Gone Harlem and Policy Man.

In 1939, James moved again, this time to Los Angeles, California, where he continued to nab small film roles. A highlight of this phase of his career was a turn as Lazarus in the 1943 anti-Nazi horror movie Revenge of the Zombies. In 1944, James met Freeman Gosden and was asked to join the cast of Freeman's radio show, Amos 'n' Andy. For the next four years, James gave voice to Gabby Gibson, a slick talking lawyer, for a nationwide audience.

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In 1945, James answered a newspaper ad seeking voice actors for a new project being produced by the Walt Disney Studio, Song of the South. He auditioned for the role of a singing butterfly, but when Walt heard his voice, James was called back for a more extensive session. In the end, Walt offered him the lead role of Uncle Remus, making James the first live action actor the studio ever hired (the studio's first live action actress was Virginia Davis, original star of the Alice Comedies). He did, in fact, also get to be that singing butterfly, as well as the voice of Br'er Fox and partially the voice of Br'er Rabbit, when Johnny Lee was unable to finish the film.

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Song of the South is a picture mired in controversy, some of it simply because of its content and some of it earned because of its handling of said content. The controversy spilled over into the film's premiere in Atlanta, Georgia. James wasn't allowed to attend because of the city's segregation laws. What's never been up for debate, however, is James' flawless performance. Walt reportedly told his sister Ruth that James was the best actor to be discovered in years. The gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, among others, agreed and began campaigning heavily on James' behalf to get him an Academy Award for his role. The pressure on the Academy worked, sort of. While he didn't get a nomination for Best Actor, James was presented with an Honorary Award for "his able and heartwarming characterization of Uncle Remus," making him the first black actor to receive an Oscar (once again slightly upstaged by a woman; Hattie McDaniel had been the first African-American to win period, several years earlier).

James didn't get to enjoy his achievement for long. His health had become an issue during filming for Song of the South and had only gotten worse since. He suffered a diabetes induced heart attack in late 1946. Less than two years later, during a summer hiatus for Amos 'n' Andy, James passed away on July 9, 1948 from heart failure. He was only 44 years old.

February 15 - Cinderella

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On this day, in 1950, Walt Disney Productions' twelfth animated feature, Cinderella, had its world debut in Boston, Massachusetts. The Disney Studio had limped through World War II. With most foreign markets unavailable (and folks at home focused on making sacrifices for the war effort), the features Disney released during those years had failed to turn much, if any, profit. With a limited staff (most of the guys had enlisted), Walt cobbled shorts together into "package" films just to keep the place open. By the war's end, more than $4 million in debt threatened to force Walt into bankruptcy (again). As the boys returned home, Walt, desperate for a hit, turned attention to the land of fairy tales and implored them to dig up a diamond.

Walt's first take on Cinderella happened in 1922 when he produced a Laugh-O-Gram cartoon based on the French tale. In the early Thirties, he wanted to make a Silly Symphony of the story, but it quickly became apparent that it would be too hard to condense the narrative enough. In 1938, it was decided that Cinderella would probably make a good feature and work began on a script. Ideas were kicked around and refined over the next few years. Production was ready to start in earnest when most work the studio was doing was stopped by order of the United States Government. It wouldn't be until 1948 that Walt blew the dust off Cinderella's script and everyone sharpened their pencils once more.

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Cinderella marked the first film that all of Walt's Nine Old Men would work together on as supervising animators. It also marked the first film that Walt wasn't overseeing on a daily basis. He was in England off and on supervising the filming of the studio's first live action picture, Treasure Island.  While that gave the Men more autonomy, it also made the movie more expensive. Every time Walt would show up, he had all sorts of little changes he wanted done to work that was already finished. By October 1949, pencils and paintbrushes had finally been laid down and Cinderella was ready for her coming out party.

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The picture was Disney's biggest critical success since Dumbo and its biggest financial success since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Cinderella grossed over $8 million and became the sixth highest grossing film of 1950. It did even better in England, coming in at fifth. Not only did Cinderella wipe out the studio's debt, it provided enough cash flow to last the rest of the Fifties. It received three Academy Award nominations (Best Sound, Best Song and Best Score) and won the Golden Bear (Music Film) at the first Berlin International Film Festival.

Since then, Cinderella has become a staple in the Disney family. She's spawned two animated sequels and a live action adaptation. She even has two castles, one in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World and another in Tokyo Disneyland (never mind the fact that that upstart Aurora has three). She may not be the smartest or the most assertive Disney Princess, but she does possess that special something that means she'll be around for many more years to come.

February 14 - Roberto De Leonardis

On this day, in 1913, Roberto de Leonardis was born in Naples, Italy. The son of an Admiral in the Italian Navy, Roberto followed in his father's footsteps, graduating from the Naval Academy as an officer, becoming a lieutenant in 1943. As luck would have it, the day after Italy fell to the Allies, his ship was sunk by the Japanese in the Yangtze River. He would spend the duration of the war learning English from the American soldiers he was imprisoned with.

When Roberto returned to Italy in 1945, he began assisting Alberto Liberati on the Italian translations of Pinocchio, Bambi and The Three Caballeros. He was so good at it, he was given Dumbo to do entirely on his own. His interpretation of the script and the songs made the Italian audiences go so gaga for the poor little elephant, notice was taken all the way back in Burbank, California.

Walt Disney wanted to meet the man who was becoming so instrumental in reopening the European markets to his company. When the two men came face to face, they hit it off and Roberto was entrusted with the Italian editions of almost every Disney film for the next several decades. His success with Disney led to contracts with other studios and he wrote the Italian scripts for other classics, like The African Queen and The Wizard of Oz, that were now finding their way to Europe.

In 1949, Roberto co-founded Filmeco, a production company that produced documentaries. Of the 50 or so films Filmeco made, two of them were specifically Disney, 1956's Gente di Sardegna and Italy 1961, the later for Expo 1961.

In 1958, Roberto founded a new production company in Rome called Royfilm. All of his Disney editing work moving forward was done under the new company and his work with other studios expanded exponentially. Over the years, Roberto was responsible for the Italian versions of The Godfather, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the James Bond pictures and Star Wars (as well as literally hundreds of others).

Roberto passed away on September 21, 1984 in Rome, Italy at the age of 71. His son, Riccardo took over Royfilm and continued his father's legacy with Disney, eventually cutting down to mostly television productions in the early Nineties. For all his help bringing the magic of Disney to the Italian masses, Roberto was posthumously made an official Disney Legend in 1997.

February 13 - John Lounsbery

On this day, in 1976, John Mitchell Lounsbery passed away in Los Angeles, California. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio on March 9, 1911, John's family moved to Denver, Colorado when he was a young child. After graduating from East Denver High School, he started taking art classes at the Art Institute of Denver. When he graduated from the Institute in 1932, he moved to Southern California and became a student at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. Once he'd pretty well established himself there, an instructor recommended that he apply for a job at the Walt Disney Studio. He did and his Disney journey began on June 2, 1935.

Image copyright Disney

Thrown right into the deep end, John's first assignment was to assist Norm Ferguson on animating the witch for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. John was an accomplished swimmer, though (he became one of Walt's Nine Old Men after all) and by Pinocchio, he was taking the lead on J. Worthington Foulfellow and his sidekick, Gideon. He was then put in charge of Ben Ali, Hyacinth and the rest of the gators and hippos for the Dance of the Hours segment in Fantasia. By Dumbo, John was a directing animator and he never looked back, contributing to almost every classic Disney feature produced during the Golden Age of the studio.

The list of characters that John was in charge of bringing to life is almost too long to believe:

Image copyright Disney

Dumbo and Timothy Mouse in Dumbo.

Donald Duck, Jose Carioca and Panchito for The Three Caballeros

The wolf in Peter and the Wolf and Willie, the whale who sings at the met, in Make Mine Music

Br'er Rabbit, Fox and Bear for Song of the South

Jiminy Cricket, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Willie the Giant in Fun and Fancy Free

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The Once Upon a Wintertime, Blame It On the Samba and Pecos Bill segments in Melody Time

Ichabod Crane, Katrina van Tassel, Brom Bones and various other people and creatures in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

Lucifer, mice, Bruno and Major in Cinderella

Caterpillar, Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter and assorted flowers and creatures for Alice in Wonderland

Image copyright Disney

The entire Darling family (including Nana) as well as pirates (including Captain Hook) and the lost boys for Peter Pan

Thomas Jefferson in Ben and Me

Lady, Tramp, Tony, Joe, Peg and a slew of others for Lady and the Tramp

King Hubert, King Stefan, Queen Leah, Prince Phillip and some goons in Sleeping Beauty

The Colonel, Jasper and Horace Badun and Sergeant Tibbs for One Hundred and One Dalmatians

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Wart, Merlin, Archimedes, Madame Mim and several others in The Sword and the Stone

Most of the farmyard animals who sing Jolly Holiday in Mary Poppins

Mowgli, the elephants, King Louie, Baloo, Bagheera, and Shere Khan for The Jungle Book

The humans and Roquefort in The Aristocats

King Leonidas in Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Robin Hood, Little John and the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood

Now John didn't draw all of these characters by himself of course. He was a directing animator, after all. His assistants and inbetweeners did all the grunt work after he drew key poses, but he was still responsible for how they looked and moved. It's no wonder why he was part of the Nine Old Men, even if he is one of the less well known names of the group. And he isn't as well known because he was a quiet, unassuming guy who wasn't flashy but just showed up every morning, put in an incredible days work and went home at five.

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By the mid-Seventies, John had moved up again to directing whole films, not just overseeing half the characters. His first gig in the director's chair was the third short featuring that tubby little cubby, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too. The led to becoming co-director for The Rescuers with Woolie Reitherman. Unfortunately, John's story comes to an abrupt end at this point. In the midst of production on The Rescuers, he went into the hospital for some surgery and didn't come back out. Just like that, his incredible 41 year career was over. And while his body of work will never be forgotten, John, sadly, is not known outside of animation circles like Frank Thomas or Marc Davis. If he had lived longer, my guess is that would not be the case as he was the first of the Nine Old Men to die. John was made an official Disney Legend, with the rest of his fellow Men, posthumously in 1989.

February 12 - Peter Ellenshaw

Image courtesy ellenshaw.com

On this day, in 2007, William Samuel Cook Ellenshaw passed away in Santa Barbara, California. Born in Essex, England on May 24, 1913, Peter (as he was known) lost his father to World War I. He left school when he was 14 to work as a mechanic to support his family. He displayed a talent for art in his spare time and after meeting W Percy Day, a British portrait painter, he spent seven years as Percy's apprentice.

Percy was also an early pioneer in the art of matte painting for films. Rather than travel to exotic (and expensive) locations, an artist could create a location on a pane of glass. When the camera was placed on one side of the pane and the actors were strategically placed on a small set on the other side of the pane, the illusion was created that the actors were in the jungle or on the moon when in reality they were on a soundstage. Peter learned the art from his mentor working on such films as 1940's The Thief of Bagdad.

Image courtesy of thecollectionshop.com

World War II would interrupt many careers and Peter's was no exception. After a tour with the Royal Air Force, he would return to matte painting once the war was over. The biggest post-war change was that he began working with Hollywood studios who were making pictures in Europe, like MGM's ancient Roman epic, Quo Vadis.

In 1950, Peter was hired by the Walt Disney Studio to paint backgrounds for the company's first live action film, Treasure Island, which was being filmed in England. His masterful renditions of historical England saved the studio from having to find and shoot in cramped, hard to reach locations. It also started a relationship that would span several decades.

Image courtesy d23.com

In 1953, Peter moved from his native land to Hollywoodland. He next painted backgrounds for the Disney classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in 1954. Ten years later, he once again returned to historical London when he painted 102 different mattes for Mary Poppins. His genius with a brush allowed the picture to be shot entirely on soundstages in Burbank. His efforts on Poppins also earned him an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, which he shared with Eustace Lycett and Hamilton Luske.

Peter would earn three more Academy Award nominations, all for Best Visual Effects, for his work on Disney features: Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), The Island on Top of the World (1974) and The Black Hole (1979). All told, he painted for 34 Disney films including Old Yeller, Pollyanna, The Absent-Minded Professor and The Love Bug. He also contributed to a slew of television productions, mostly for whatever Disney anthology show was currently running.

Image courtesy artinsights.com

Following his contributions to The Black Hole, Peter retired from the motion picture industry and devoted the remainder of his life to his passion of creating fine art. Some of his works were Disney themed and some were the landscapes he loved to paint of the California coastline. All of them are highly collectible. He would return as a matte painter a handful of times, most notably for the 1990 Disney film Dick Tracy and working with his son Harrison, another Oscar winner for effects, on Superman IV. In 1993, Peter was declared an official Disney Legend for his invaluable contributions to so many classic films. He was 93 when he died.

February 11 - Blaine Gibson

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On this day, in 1918, Ira Blaine Gibson was born in Rocky Ford, Colorado. Growing up on his parents' melon farm, Blaine showed his artistic talents at an early age. When he was twelve, he won a national contest sponsored by Proctor and Gamble for carving a figure out of a bar of Ivory Soap. The grand prize was $10 for his elephant.

Blaine would go to Western State College and the University of Colorado studying art until his family ran out of money. At the age of 21 he wrote to the Walt Disney Studio inquiring about a job. The studio sent him an application that required him to show off his drawing skills. Not only did he get the job, but he was asked to sign a release for the sketch he made of a boy milking a cow into a cat's mouth as the company wanted to use it right away. So, in the spring of 1939, Blaine moved to Southern California.

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Blaine began as an assistant animator at Disney. He worked on features like Fantasia, Bambi and Song of the South. By 1949, he was permanently assigned to working under Frank Thomas, one of Walt's Nine Old Men, and assisted him on such films as Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty and Peter Pan. He was good at animation but always kept an interest in sculpting, so much so that he would attend classes at Pasadena City College to improve his work. That dedication would pay off in 1954.

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As work was gearing up on Disneyland, Walt began pulling more and more people from the studio to work on his park. He discovered Blaine's talent as a sculptor and immediately put him to work on the new Project. Over the years, Blaine would sculpt faces for Audio-Animatronics in attractions from an uncanny likeness of Abraham Lincoln for the 1964 World's Fair to the Haunted Mansion to Pirates of the Caribbean to It's a Small World. When asked where he got his inspiration for so many different looks, he admitted that some of the ghouls and pirates he created might have looked a lot like people from his church while others were people he'd had dinner with over the years.

When Walt Disney World was being designed, not only were many of Blaine's creations duplicated in the Florida versions of existing attractions, but he was tapped to sculpt each of the Commanders in Chief for the Hall of Presidents in Liberty Square. Even after his retirement, Blaine would return to sculpt each new president. The first 43 Presidents in the Hall, from George Washington to George W. Bush, were all done by Blaine.

Image copyright Disney

Blaine's best known work, however, was produced in 1993, the statue known as Partners. The copper statue of Walt, holding hands with Mickey Mouse, gesturing out over the park and towards the future, has become synonymous with the Walt Disney Company. Working from a 1960 bust of Walt, Blaine modeled it after what he considered to be Walt's prime years, the mid-Fifties. He once said that the hardest part of the piece to get right was Mickey's fingers as they wrapped around Walt's. The original Partners is located in the hub area of Disneyland. Reproductions have found their way into four other locations around the world: the hub area of the Magic Kingdom in Florida, Tokyo Disneyland in Japan, The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California and The Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris, France. The statue was also given out in a miniature version, called Partners in Excellence, for a while to recognize Cast Members who were nominated by their peers as someone who embodied the spirit of Walt Disney.

Blaine retired from the Walt Disney Company in 1983 after 44 years of enduring contributions to the company's legacy. Besides returning every 4-8 years to create a new face for the Hall of Presidents, he would come back in 1993 to be honored as an official Disney Legend, for obvious reasons. On July 5, 2015, Blaine passed away from heart failure at his home in Montecito, California. He was 97.