Symphony
called
Autumn
, but he failed to show up). 34 That Saturday morning, he and Roy had what Roy described, in a letter to Walt written later that day, as a âvery calm, quietâ talk. âI told him frankly that the worst feature of this whole affair was the fact that a fellow as close to us as he had been should turn on us at a time like this.â Iwerks had begun negotiating for his own producing deal the previous September, Roy wrote, and âdid not even know until two days before he received his contract that [Powers] was behind it. . . . We know how gullible and easily [led] Ub is, and we have a good dose of how two-faced Charlie Giegerich and P. A. [Powers] are. Not trying to excuse Ub, but just trying to size it up all the way around, I believe Ub at the start meant O.K., and I am sure that right now, even though he wonât admit it, he regrets very much the outcome.â 35
Powers had made a fatal misjudgment, since Iwerks was simply too reserved a personalityâespecially compared with Walt Disneyâto succeed for very long as the head of a cartoon studio. * âUb shunned responsibility,âBen Sharpsteen said. âHeâd be kind of generous on being solicited and heâd give all the advice he knew how, but he didnât put himself ahead.â 36
Like the Mintz recruits in 1928, Iwerks cited his arguments with Walt Disney as his motivating force. Roy wrote: âUb said when first approached, you and he had been having considerable friction and that he made up his mind it was best to step out.â 37 For his part, Disney said in 1956 that he thought Iwerks had nursed a lingering sense of injustice. Disney believed that Iwerks was always troubled because he was far more experienced as a commercial artistâand surely more skilledâbut was paid less than Disney after they both went to work for the Kansas City Film Ad Company.
Carl Stalling also resigned from the Disney staff, the day after Iwerks did. âI thought something was wrong,â Stalling said many years later. âWhen Roy Disney told me that Ub was leaving, I told him, âWell, I guess Iâll be leaving, too.â â 38 In Stallingâs case, as in Iwerksâs, arguments with Walt had made him eager to leave. Stalling had accepted Waltâs offer of a one-third interest in the
Silly Symphonies
âtwenty-five dollars a week had been withheld from his salary since December 31, 1928âbut as in Iwerksâs case, leaving the studio voided the agreement. 39 Stalling had also invested two thousand dollars in the Disney Film Recording Company early in 1929, when Walt was trying to raise enough money to pay for the Cinephone equipment he needed on the West Coast. The Disneys repaid that money.
More acrimony surrounded Stallingâs departure than Iwerksâs. When Stalling returned to the studio to remove his sheet music, on the same day that Iwerks said his farewell, Roy refused to let him take all of it. âHe showed a disposition to get nasty and take it in spite of me,â Roy wrote to Walt, âand I thought I was going to have to resort to throwing him out!â 40
Walt Disney had now been in two partnerships with Ub Iwerks, one rather more nebulous partnership with Fred Harman, and a semipartnership with Carl Stalling. Two of those partnerships, the first with Iwerks and the one with Harman, had fizzled quickly, and the other two had ended in the rupture of long friendships. There would be no more partnerships. Although the Disneys seriously considered sharing ownership with outside investors in 1932, only Walt and Roy and their wives would own the company as long as it remained privately held. 41 Disney spoke guardedly or misleadingly of all his former partners in future years (in 1956, he referred to Stalling as âthe organistâ), and, as one new employee learned in 1930, he was particularly bitter about the most important one, Ub