Thomas Hart Benton(1889-1975)

Inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians, 1985.

[on his failed attempt at collaborating with Walt Disney] Walt Disney brought me out to Hollywood in 1946 to work on a picture that would have been sort of an American operetta about the life of Davy Crockett. Well, Disney had just put up a huge modern studio and was tremendously overextended financially, and his operations were actually under the control of a big New York City bank. And immediately the bankers started meddling with the story line. They knew that a large percentage of Disney's profits came from showing his films in Latin America, and so they didn't think it would be good business to have Crockett killed at the Alamo by Mexicans. So I suggested that we have Davy die in Congress from listening to all the oratory. They didn't like that, of course. They wanted him to just fade gloriously up in the sky or something. Well, hell, I wasn't going to have any part of that, so I sold my interest in the project to Disney for three thousand dollars and went home. I wish I hadn't signed away my interest. Years later Walt put Crockett on television and made a fortune.