Quotes

[on her career] To be part of all that majesty and animation history is just heartwarming for me and I really feel privileged to have been part of it. It makes me think that perhaps I did accomplish something that is indeed a part of Walt Disney's history.

[on Walt Disney] Walt never had any ill feelings toward me. I could still continue to go out and see him. He'd always come up to me and put his arm around me and say, "How are you doing, Virginia?" I always had entrée to his office if I wanted to use it. We continued to be friends and after [Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)] he gave me a job. He taught me how to ink and paint and I also did some voices for a while.

[on filming the "Alice" shorts] It was very informal. We used to have a lot of people gathered around. During the silent days we would have a lot of the curious children and the neighbors come around to watch what was going on. They would use some of the children in some of the scenes as they did in one of my favorites, Alice's Wild West Show (1924), where they were used as the audience. There was no Screen Actors Guild so there was no place to go if you needed somebody for a film. You just used whomever was around at the time.

[on being hired by Walt Disney] Walt had always had the idea. Alice in Cartoonland was something he had been thinking of doing. I guess when he saw me he thought, "Here was a little girl who could do it". I think that's where it all started. He contacted my mother and pitched this idea about how great it would be for her little girl. Mother was open to suggestion so she said okay.

[on her early career] My mother always had me practice whatever I was learning in dancing school every single afternoon. Even later in California after I'd come home from school I was still doing my dancing routines with the Victrola playing my music and the rug rolled up; and if I didn't do them well or correctly, I didn't get to go out to play until I did.

[on shooting the "Alice" series] We'd film in a vacant lot. Walt [producer Walt Disney] would drape a white tarpaulin over the back of a billboard and along the ground, and I'd have to work in pantomime. They would add the animation around me later. It was such fun. Kids in the neighborhood would act as extras, and Walt paid them 50 cents apiece.