Dancing model Marge Champion on making ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’

by W. Andrew Powell
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Once upon a time, Walt Disney had an idea to create a feature-length animated film that wouldn’t just be for kids. It was a visionary dream that would help turn Walt Disney, and his fledgling studio, into a worldwide phenomenon, and dancer Marge Champion was there when Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was being made.

Champion was just 14-years-old when she danced for Disney animators, who would draw her movements to create the life-like sequences of Snow White. At the time, however, no one knew how Champion contributed to the film because Walt Disney feared some might think they had just copied the film frames, which was not the case. It would be a few years before Disney would reveal how the animators came to create such beautiful animated dancing scenes.

Speaking to Champion recently, I had the chance to ask her about the process, and what it meant to her. The Walt Disney Signature Collection edition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is available now on Digital HD and Blu-ray Combo Pack.


Andrew Powell: I just loved watching the video that they used of you dancing to do the animation for Snow White. What do you remember of those days of filming those segments?

Marge Champion: “Well I was fourteen when I did most of Snow White, although I also did the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio, and the hippopotamus in Fantasia. So I was there for about three and half years on and off.”

AP: What was the direction they gave you during those scenes they were getting to shoot with you?

Champion: “Well at first they were as puzzled as I was. That first cartoon–the head of the [characters] is larger, so they had gotten a football helmet for me on my head. It not only stopped me from doing anything because it was so heavy, it also… I nearly fainted under the heat of it. That was the first ride.”

“We worked it out so I didn’t have to wear a big head, just my own hair. Most of the work that we did was just improvised on the spot. The animators, they could really get the dwarves from themselves because they had little mirrors next to them where they were animating and they could use as many pages as they wanted to.”

“We were following a script. When she sang, they had already made a record of Adriana Caselotti. I had to lip sync right to her every word, every breath that she took which actually was a very good training for me because later on when I was on Show Boat and different MGM movies. In those days you sang to the record that’s already made.”

AP: Did Mr. Disney come in very often during any of those segments or was it more the animators and everyone else you saw?

Champion: “Actually he kept his eye on me and he told me to call him Uncle Walt because I was too young to call him Walt like all the animators did. He was so busy getting money to finish the picture and going up with his brother, I think it was Roy, and getting the banks to take a look at what he already done because he had to get more money. Even at the studio, I mean everybody called its ‘Walt’s Folley’.”

AP: What did you think once you actually saw the completed work and once it was on screen? How did it impact you?

Champion: “Well I was hidden upstairs at the opening in December at Carthay Circle Theatre. They celebrated Shirley Temple and her friends. They were celebrities of the day. I was hidden upstairs because at that point he thought if people thought there was a model they would think that they just copied me which they did not. They used me as a guide for their movement.”

AP: How much later was it before you actually get more recognition for that dancing? Did it come immediately or was quite a few years?

Champion: “There was a Life magazine editor who did an article. He convinced them that nobody would think they just [copied me]. They finally put it together because they were convinced by that time that the audience was just as interested in me as they were in Snow White and they might as well use that.”

AP: How did it impact your career after that because obviously you went on to do a lot of other dancing and other films? Did it help you? Did other people come to you later on and ask you about it when you working?

Champion: “Well they didn’t ask me about Snow White so much because I then was doing the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio. I really loved being the hippopotamus [too]. It was very seductive.”

AP: It’s a wonderful scene.

Champion: “I really enjoyed being such a silly animal, you know. By that time I knew what they wanted and I was able to… well just be myself because I really had worked hard to be a dancer. My father was a wonderful teacher. I had worked hard to be a model.”

“I [also] did Dopey with his big coat on.”

AP: I heard something that said you earned something like ten dollars a day doing that part? Is that true?

Champion: “Yes.”

AP: That’s not too bad for those days, was it?

Champion: “Well it wasn’t too good either.”

“Before I went to New York with the Three Stooges I had to buy a warm coat because we opened up at the theater in Chicago and it was freezing cold. It was below zero. So I really had to get something warm. I got a fur coat for $100 I think it was. It wasn’t nearly warm enough for that weather. In those day we just figured out things. With the Three stooges I did… what was it Variety said? “A fair toe dance as Snow white.”

AP: That’s amazing. Well it’s really wonderful to chat with you. Thank you very much for the time.

Champion: “Well I enjoyed talking about it. Thank you for calling.”

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