Walt Disney’s first female storyteller supplied the heartfelt narratives that helped Snow White, Bambi, and Pinocchio become some of the studio’s most iconic films, but Bianca Majolie never got proper credit—until now. In the latest issue of Alta Journal, writer Shannon McHugh chronicles Majolie’s life and work as the Italian-born first female storyteller hired by Disney, her former high school classmate, in 1935. McHugh joins Alta Live to share Majolie’s struggles in an all-male workplace, her forward-thinking perspective, and the artist’s important impact on cinema. Grab your popcorn and join us!

ABOUT THE GUEST

Shannon McHugh is a scholar of French and Italian Renaissance literature and the assistant director of research at the Huntington. She is the author of Petrarch and the Making of Gender in Renaissance Italy and is working on a book about the Library of the Walt Disney Studio.

Here are some notable quotes from the event:

  • On Bianca Majolie’s start at the studio: “There’s hardly anybody in Hollywood more famous than Walt Disney at this moment—a total rising star. And she [Majolie] says, ‘We had a single interaction in high school, but would you look at my art?’ And he says, ‘Incredible,’ and ends up giving her a job, and she becomes the first woman hired [at Walt Disney Animation Studio] in a creative role.”
  • On working on Majolie’s history: “Part of what is fun about working on Bianca Majolie is hoping that someday the contributions of Bianca Majolie, and some of these other women that I have named in this conversation who you can read about in other Disney historians’ books, that the more we talk about them, the more they’ll get closer to sort of a Mary Blair level of renown.”
  • On Walt Disney: “I feel like with a figure like Walt Disney, who can be divisive, I don’t think you have to take an either-or stance on him. I think the more we know about a figure like that, the more we can appreciate the nuances of what they did.”

Check out these links to some of the topics brought up this week.