In 1934, he had lunch with a former McKinley High School and Chicago Art Institute classmate at the Tam O’Shanter (a restaurant near the Disney Hyperion studio that was so favored by Disney staffers that it was known as their “studio commissary”). His classmate was Bianca Majolie, and she so impressed Walt with her artistic talents and story skills, that he hired her as his story department’s first woman employee. Providing an entirely different perspective than the rest of the gag-oriented story team, Majolie came up with a touching original story about a baby elephant who is teased because of his looks—but whose awkward-appearing trunk proves surprisingly useful against a fire that threatens the girl he loves. The story was developed into the 1936 Silly Symphony, Elmer Elephant.  Master Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, in their book Too Funny for Words, credit Bianca with elevating the art of animated storytelling: “We could not have made any of the feature films without learning this important lesson: Pathos gives comedy the heart and warmth that keeps it from becoming brittle.”

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