A drawing from a series featuring the character Colonel Heeza Liar, spanning 1913-1717 and 1922-24, on which Kelley worked.
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A drawing from a series featuring the character Colonel Heeza Liar, spanning 1913-1717 and 1922-24, on which Kelley worked.
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With a chest full of paper, charcoal, and a giant easel towing, Bessie Mae Kelley would travel across the country for her vaudeville circuits in the 1920s.
Kelley was a pioneer in animation, having hand-drawn a pair of mice named Milton and Mary before Mickey Mouse or Minnie Mouse. She will attract the variety audience to the new world of motion animation in the budding industry called animation. She even describes herself as “the only female animator” on these tours.
However, much of Kelley’s story and work has been lost in the pages of her own diary and gone unrecorded – until now.
Surviving material from a collection featuring the original animated walking cycles of Avery and Walt Wallet, two of the main characters of the 1918 Frank King comic book series gas station alley with which Kelley worked.
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Earlier this year, animation historian Mindy Johnson was on the hunt for female animators who may have been erased from history, when she came across an illustration depicting industry pioneers. In the corner of the photo is a lone woman who she suspects is Kelley, although one of Johnson’s colleagues has referred to her as a “cleaner” or “secretary”.
“Women’s roles are often overlooked or overlooked, or reduced to just a bunch of pretty girls who draw and color,” says Johnson. But she has a theory that women in the vaudeville age were more involved in the early days of animation than was previously known.
Johnson followed his hunch and went down a rabbit hole that historians have only dreamed of.
Kelley’s circular variety ad.
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Kelley’s circular variety ad.
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She started making random calls, flying around the country and knocking on the doors of Kelley’s relatives. She eventually tracked down a niece and nephew who managed to keep some of Kelley’s letters, artwork, and reels of film. Some of it was damaged, but Johnson was able to piece together parts of her story and some of her films.
According to Johnson, Kelley was studying art at New York’s Pratt Academy, and as part of the first generation of cinema, she fell in love with the medium.
Johnson said: “She was causing trouble for herself on set and they ended up hiring her.
Kelley started out working in the industry with mundane jobs like washing film cells, but she put her best in it and Johnson said she ended up “working side by side with Max Fleischer, Paul Terry and Walter Lantz,” famous animators.
Close-up image of the opening title from one of Kelley’s surviving nitrate films.
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Close-up image of the opening title from one of Kelley’s surviving nitrate films.
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Kelley drew cartoons by hand in collaboration with Terry for his popular animated adaptation of Aesop’s Fables, which included the pair of mice known as Milton and Mary.
Johnson said: “Even Walt Disney is credited with saying that when he set up his studio in Kansas City, he wanted to make good animation like Aesop’s Fables.
Kelley both an animated short and a director, thanks to Johnson’s research, is now considered the earliest known animated film hand-drawn and directed by a woman. This erasure, says Johnson, is “common in movies, it’s common in life in general. Stories about women aren’t told.”
“History is recorded, preserved or written in the archives from a male perspective, and especially in the history of animation,” she said.
Johnson’s discovery of Kelley’s work set off a project she plans to turn into books and movies about Kelley and previously uncredited women in animation. And earlier this week, Johnson presented his discoveries at the Academy Film Museum in Los Angeles, where she also premiered two restored short films by Kelley.
The opening title tag for flower fairy – one of only two surviving films to be the earliest hand-drawn cartoon directed and animated by a woman.
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The opening title tag for flower fairy – one of only two surviving films to be the earliest hand-drawn cartoon directed and animated by a woman.
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The first is a five-minute movie titled flower fairycompleted in 1921. It uses a technique called compositing animation, in which hand-drawn animation is combined with live-action footage.
The second three-minute film from 1922 called Merry Christmas, which includes stop motion animation in addition to composite animation. Johnson said animators spanned generations and that several of Kelley’s family members attended the screening.
Johnson presented his findings on Monday, December 19.
Jerry Beck
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Jerry Beck
Johnson presented his findings on Monday, December 19.
Jerry Beck
“It’s been a huge joy to sit in the dark, look at the audience and see them take in something that I’ve been attached to for years. And to see it change their world,” Johnson said.
Johnson, who teaches at the California Institute of the Arts and Drexel University, says the discovery of Kelley’s role in animation wasn’t just about filling in the gaps in history, it’s also inspired a generation of filmmakers. New animators come from underrepresented backgrounds in an industry that still exists. dominated by men.
“For my students, I can see them standing a little taller and more confident about their work and where they are headed when they know the path has opened up,” she said. “Once they know that women are always there, that they are always in the room, they can move forward.”
