Bianca Majolie - my 255th pick to be named a Disney Legend

Bianca Majolie, story artist, concept artist, and writer. In 1935, she was the first woman to become a storyboard artist for Walt Disney Productions. She is my 255th pick to be named a Disney Legend.

In 1934, Majolie submitted a letter to Disney expressing interest in working for his animation department. The two held lunch at the Tam O'Shanter Inn where based on the strength of her samples of "Stella", he hired her to serve in the story department. In 1935, the story department was predominantly male with at least fifteen men where story conferences were mostly held for slapstick-driven ideas. That same year, Majolie submitted a thirteen-page outline entitled "The Romance of Baby Elephant", which went into production as the Silly Symphony cartoon, Elmer Elephant. Her affectionate story would later be praised by animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston where they wrote the following about her contributions: "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." In 1937, she was commissioned by Disney to provide a new English translation of the Carlo Collodi novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio, for his animated film adaptation. In 1938, she wrote several outlines and provided visual development artwork for early versions of Cinderella and Peter Pan. That same year, she partnered with artist Al Heath to provide conceptual artwork on the Nutcracker Suite segment in Fantasia. Following her work on The Ugly Duckling, Majolie took a sabbatical leave from Disney claiming she had "lost interest". She returned in June 1940 where she was informed that she was fired.