Dorothy Ann Blank was an American writer, who created the first story treatments, character development, and dialogue for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at Walt Disney Animation Studios in the mid-1930s. Her pioneering work established processes that are still in place today.
Blank was born in Chicago, Illinois but grew up in Whitehall, Michigan and graduated from high school there before moving to Los Angeles. She worked at several newspapers and movie magazines, including Mickey Mouse Magazine.
Already a successful writer with a job at United Artists under her resume, Walt Disney hired her, with encouragement from employee Grace Huntington[1], to explore different approaches on how to tell a story. Credited for founding the Story Development Department, Blank was tasked with helping the storyboard artists craft story treatments for Walt most ambitious project at the time.
For Snow White, her job was to figure out how the story could be told through animation. The plot progressed, the story department reviewed the plot over and over, cutting scenes for the most concise and compelling storytelling that would be entertaining for the audience as well as making the characters likable and believable. Blank's personal contributions to the film included the Queen's dialogues when she talks to the mirror and when she dips the apple in the poison as well as the scene cards that appear throughout the film. She also wrote the novelization of the film that was published by Grosset & Dunlap and Good Housekeeping in 1938.
By the 1940s, Blank had left screenwriting altogether but continued to work in various jobs, such as "The Californian" newspaper. She died at her home in Bakersfield in 1957.
Trivia[]
- Joe Grant was sketching her in the studio, when she asked him who was he modeling her face for he replied The Evil Queen. Flattered, she said at least I’m not the Old Hag.
References[]
External links[]
Dorothy Ann Blank on IMDb
Dorothy Ann Blank at Find a Grave
Discover Contributions Women of Animation at D23, The Official Disney Fan Club- Snow White Museum - Dorothy Ann Blank
- Movie She Wrote, Snow White and Dorothy
