Walt Disney cast an evil end for the voice of Snow White
WALT Disney was enthralled with his most menacing evil character, created by Lucille La Verne. But while audiences fell for the beautiful heroine, Snow White, 80 years later it is her evil adversary that has stolen the limelight.
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WALT Disney was enthralled with his most menacing evil character, created when middle-aged actress Lucille La Verne commanded: “A blast of wind to fan my hate. A thunderbolt to mix it well. Now, begin thy magic spell.”
La Verne, a former child actress with a string of silent and talkie movies to her credit when cast in Snow White in 1935, is also credited for the mannerisms ascribed to Disney’s animated Evil Queen. Although audiences immediately fell for the sweet, beautiful heroine in Disney’s heart-touching Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, almost 80 years later her evil adversary has stolen the limelight.
After Snow White and The Huntsman movie four years ago grossed nearly $400 million worldwide on a $170 million production budget, its sequel The Huntsman: Winter’s War opens in Sydney this week.
Although evil Queen Ravenna, played by Charlize Theron, was vanquished by Kristen Stewart’s Snow White in the 2012 film, in Winter’s War Ravenna is revived by her equally evil sister, Ice Queen Freya, played by Emily Blunt.
La Verne, born Lucille Mitchum in Nashville, Tennessee, on November 8, 1872, made her stage debut with a local theatre in 1876 in a production called Centennial, to mark America’s 100th birthday. At 14 she played Juliet and Lady Macbeth in back-to-back productions and began a Broadway career by 16.
In “speakie” movies La Verne was typecast in roles as strong, often disagreeable women.
Disney liked her cool, regal voice and asked her to play the beautiful, evil Queen to create what became cinema’s most convincingly malicious villain to that time. La Verne’s debut was credited as the model for such future villains as Ursula in The Little Mermaid (1989) and Scar in The Lion King (1994).
Snow White animator Joe Grant also watched La Verne’s body language as she recorded, and sketched her poses and postures for later reference when animating the Queen.
Learning that Disney was dissatisfied with the voice of the Hag, La Verne offered to play the role.
Still dissatisfied, Disney asked La Verne to try the scene again.
The actress excused herself, returned, and performed the lines in Disney’s desired sinister, cackling “hag-ish” voice. Impressed, Disney asked what she had done in the rest room.
La Verne told him she had removed her false teeth.
Despite the success of the movie and her role, La Verne retired from acting after Snow White to open a nightclub. The movie also effectively ended the cinema careers of her younger, fellow voice actors, including the voice of Snow White, Italian-American soprano Adriana Caselotti.
Paid only about $970 for her uncredited role in what she thought was a 20-minute film, in 1938 she unsuccessfully sued Disney and RCA for $200,000 as her share of soundtrack-record profits. Snow White’s Prince Charming, Harry Stockwell, also unsuccessfully sued, for $100,000.
Disney was also accused of ending Caselotti’s career with a contract that prevented her from working for another studio, while failing to cast her in any other roles in order to preserve the uniqueness of Snow White’s voice.
Determined to find a singer with a young-sounding voice capable of reaching high notes in music written for the film, Disney auditioned more than 150 singers for the role of Snow White, including actress Deanna Durbin, then 14, but turned down because her voice was “too mature”. Disney also had a representative phone Caselotti’s father, voice coach Guido, to ask if any of his music students would fit the role.
Caselotti, who died in 1997, told an interviewer in 1987 she listened in on the phone conversation. Although then 18, she showed off her singing talent and ability to speak as a child over the phone to win an audition.
All voice roles in the movie were uncredited, attributed to Disney’s desire to protect the illusion that his animated characters were real.
And when Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs debuted on December 21, 1937, at Los Angeles’s Carthay Circle Theatre, neither Caselotti nor Stockwell were invited. Both waited for an usherette to move on before sneaking in.
“The audience was filled with people like Carole Lombard, Judy Garland, Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich and Charlie Chaplin, all applauding for me, and I’m standing upstairs in the very back of the balcony looking down because there weren’t any seats for two of the film’s stars,” Caselotti said.
And when Jack Benny contacted Disney studios about Caselotti performing on his radio show, his request was refused on the grounds a performance would spoil the Snow White illusion.
Despite Caselotti requesting more work, she explained: “Walt Disney never used me as an actress or vocalist again.”
Originally published as Walt Disney cast an evil end for the voice of Snow White
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