Sometime actress Virginia Davis, who in later life was known as Virginia Davis McGhee, died 15 August 2009 at her home in California. Born 31 December 1918 in Kansas City, Missouri, she was Walt Disney’s first star, before he created Mickey Mouse.
Davis was a child model and commercial actress when Walt Disney noticed her in a bread commercial. He had set up his cartoon studio in Kansas City, and wanted to imitate the Fleischers’ success with their Out of the Inkwell series (in which animated characters were portrayed in the real world). Disney reversed the concept, putting a real girl in an animated world.
According to The New York Times, Disney recruited her and, “as payment, offered her 5 percent from any money he received from the first film. Alice’s Wonderland (1923) was filmed with Davis performing in front of a white cloth draped over a billboard in a vacant lot. Disney would tell her whether to look happy, sad or frightened. The animated characters were added later.
“The plots of the Alice films usually had her falling into a dream or being knocked out, then finding herself in another world, not unlike the original story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. There were no rehearsals, and scenes were shot just once. Disney had no permit, so cast and crew would scurry away if a police officer was near. Neighborhood children and other passers-by became part of the movie.”
Disney moved to California, and was later offered funding to continue the Alice series, provided Davis reprised her role. About the same time, a doctor had advised Davis’s parents to move her to a warmer, drier climate, and Disney and the Davises were able to make the business work. She played Alice in another dozen short films over the next three years, before Disney tried to cut her salary, and her parents walked away from the deal.
She had several uncredited film roles in the 1930s and 1940s, and voiced some supporting characters in Disney’s Pinocchio (1940).
Her husband of 59 years, former Naval aviator Robert McGhee, died in 2002. She is survived by two daughters and three grandchildren.