The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation's Golden Age
by: Friedman, Jake S.

Softcover. Chicago, Chicago Review Press, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 322 pages, b&w illustrations. An essential piece of Disney history has been unreported for eighty years.Soon after the birth of Mickey Mouse, one animator raised the Disney Studio far beyond Walts expectations. That animator also led a union war that almost destroyed it. Art Babbitt animated for the Disney studio throughout the 1930s and through 1941, years in which he and Walt were jointly driven to elevate animation as an art form, up through Snow White, Pinocchio, and Fantasia.But as America prepared for World War II, labour unions spread across Hollywood. Disney fought the unions while Babbitt embraced them. Soon, angry Disney cartoon characters graced picket signs as hundreds of animation artists went out on strike. Adding fuel to the fire was Willie Bioff, one of Al Capones wiseguys who was seizing control of Hollywood workers and vied for the animators union.Using never-before-seen research from previously lost records, including conversation transcriptions from within the studio walls, author and historian Jake S. Friedman reveals the details behind the labour dispute that changed animation and Hollywood forever. Clean copy.